The USS North Carolina (BB-55) My all-time favorite warship. As an elementary school student in North Carolina, I donated nickels and dimes to save this ship back in the early sixties.

Thursday, July 14, 2016

Funeral Held in Montana for Doolittle Raider David Thatcher

From the June 28, 2016, Washington Times.

It was held at Sunset Memorial Cemetery in  Missoula, Montana, featuring a flyover by a B-1 bomber from Ellsworth AFB and then a B-25 like the one he flew in the raid as a twenty-year-old back on April 18, 1942.  He was a tail gunner/engineer in that one.

Governor Steve Bullock ordered flags in Montana to be flown at half mast.

Thatcher's son-in-law, Jeff Miller said that the raider had signed thousands of posters and other items during his life.

The sole remaining  Doolittle Raider, Lt.Col. Dick Cole, 100, was in attendance.  Cole was co-pilot alongside Lt.Col. James Doolittle in bomber No. 1.  Mr. Thatcher was in bomber No. 7.

Sons and grandsons of four other Raiders were in attendance.

--GreGen

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