If you were in Missoula around noon Monday, you may have heard something very loud. It was an Air Force B-1 bomber from Malmstrom Air Force Base making a pass through the valley to honor David Thatcher, a member of the Doolittle Raiders who died Wednesday and was buried in Missoula today.
Thatcher was the second to last surviving member of the Doolittle Raiders, the group of 80 men who flew bombing missions on Tokyo in retaliation for the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.
The memorial service started quietly, with an honor guard in Air Force blue dress uniforms carrying Thatcher’s casket to the grave.
The B-25 bomber that then-corporal Thatcher served on as a tail gunner crashed near an island off the Chinese coast. Thatcher is credited with pulling four crew members to safety, and then helping them make their way to a hospital on mainland China while evading Japanese troops. He was awarded the Silver Star for valor.
As the ceremony wrapped up, a B-25 bomber like the one Thatcher flew a total of 26 missions in as a gunner and flight engineer, circled three times before climbing up and away.
Thatcher was born in Bridger, Montana in 1921. He left the Air Force as a Master Sergeant, and after the war worked as a letter carrier in Missoula. He was 94 years old. After his passing, there is only one surviving member of the Doolittle Raiders: 100-year-old-Richard Cole, who was at Thatcher’s memorial.
