Alta C Thomas - WWII War Heroes, World War II - Tribute site by Q Madp

Alta C Thomas

Sequim, Washington

August 28, 2017

Age	Military	Rank	Unit/Location
99	Army Air Force

Alta Corbett "Teta" Thomas (1918 - 2017)
Obituary

Alta ""Teta"" Corbett Thomas
May 26, 1918 - August 28, 2017

Mrs. Alta ""Teta"" Corbett Thomas, our Mom and Hero, passed away peacefully at home surrounded by those she loved on August 28, 2017. She was born on May 26, 1918, the fourth of five daughters to Elliott Ruggles Corbett and Alta Smith in Portland, Oregon.

Alta lived life to the fullest never backing down from a challenge. She was an adventurer in spirit and actions. Circa 1940, she summited Mt Rainier, Mt Hood, Mt Adams, The Sisters and Mt St Helens with an ice axe and crampons handmade for her by an old climbing guide.

Nature was one of Alta's life-long passions. She related to it on a deeper level which is apparent in a lot of her poetry. She was also an avid fly fisherman…catching just what was needed for her cat, dog and herself. We can imagine Mom happily standing knee deep in the river, casting her hand-tied fly onto the water's rippling surface while smoking a cigarette and chewing on the makings of a poem.

Early life consisted of horses and a freedom to explore. Painfully shy, she did not want to go off to school but a compromise was made that she attend one year to ""broaden her horizons"" at Smith College.

After acquiring her BA in History at Smith College and her private and commercial pilots licenses at Swan Island Airport, Alta worked at the Pentagon for Air Branch G-2 as a Research Analyst when the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilot) program emerged. She was granted a transfer and was one of 1,074 women who were accepted and graduated out of 25,000 applicants.Combined, the WASP flew over 60 million miles. She flew the AT-6, AT-7, AT-11, A-24, A-25, B-34 and UC-78. She was in Tow Target Squadrons 3rd and 1st, Camp Davis, NC and Liberty Field, Camp Stewart, GA. The TTS helped train anti-aircraft artillery crews on the ground while towing targets at low and high (>10,000 ft) altitudes, IFF identification friend or foe, cross country flights, night searchlight missions, instrument training and dropping chaff to determine if the radar could be interrupted.

When the WASP were disbanded they were left high and dry without jobs or their promised veteran status as WWII came to an end. Alta found a job with the CAA as a communicator in Gustavus, Alaska where she initially met our Dad, Ralph Thomas. Then she worked in Yakutat where Morse Code became her second language.

In her own words: ""I spent the next ten years living off the land and homing a cabin with cat and dog in the Willamette National Forest."" She probably would've been very happy living out the rest of her life on the banks of the McKenzie with her dog, her fly rod, writing poetry and a couple of good friends. Mom feared domesticity more than flying or mountain climbing! Perhaps that's commonplace for an adventurous spirit. She chose instead to give our Dad her hand in marriage on June 8, 1961 with the expectation they were to travel the world in construction jobs, but he was hurt at a dam site and life changed, yet her commitment remained. She was scared stiff of having to plan, shop for and then cook three meals a day, e-v-e-r-y day for the rest of her life. Dad said he was a good cook so not to worry.

""For 10 years we homed a sand dune on the Oregon coast. Here our two daughters were born. We fished the ocean, clammed the sands, our daughters grew from infancy to school girls and my husband healed.""

""Ralph, an Eastern Washington farm boy, wanted this experience for his girls. In Sequim, the small farm saw horses, cows, chickens, ducks, a sheep, a goat, cats and dogs. We irrigated fields and grew hay.""

Mom aced her motorcycle safety course at age 70, top of her class, we're told. No surprise here! In 2010, the WASP were finally recognized for their service to our country during WWII and at 92, Mom and family traveled to Washington D.C. to receive the Congressional Gold Medal in person.

In the last ten years of her life, as her world became smaller, Mom handled the changes with smiles, grace and gratitude. When she handed over her car keys, she walked everywhere despite being legally blind and when offered a ride her reply was always, ""Heavens no, my legs are the only things that work!"" When balance became an issue, trekking poles appeared to steady her gait. As the unsteadiness progressed, a walker replaced the trekking poles but she deemed the newest accommodation to be ""just the thing."" Time marched onward as did age. Raising the flag in the morning, followed by a salute to start the day, bald eagle sightings with Kelly, trips to feed the ducks and geese with Debbie and the nightly ritual of folding the flag with her will be sorely missed and never forgotten.

Our family was blessed to have a wonderful care team these last four years to help Mom with the things that didn't come so easily for her anymore. ""Thank you"" does not seem enough to say to these wonderful, caring women who came to love Mom almost as much as we do, you know who you are, and you have become part of our extended family.

Mom always led by example. We never heard her speak ill of another (even if it was warranted). She exemplified this quote: ""There's so much bad in the best of us and so much good in the worst of us that it ill becomes any of us to find fault with the rest of us."" She was patriotic, courageous, gentle, gracious, humble and kind. She was the kind of person we strive to be.

Alta is predeceased by her husband, Ralph and sisters: Caroline, Day, Judy and Lucy, their husbands and her grandson Matthew McGoff. She is survived by her two daughters: Debbie and husband Tom, grandchildren Noah & Jenna of Port Angeles and Kelly and wife Sherri, grand dogs Finn and Koji of Sequim.

Step-sons Ralph Lee and wife Kathy, their children Vicki, Karen, Amy, Heidi & David and their eight grandchildren of Georgia, and John Thomas of Washington.

""Blessings to All. May we meet again.""

Celebration of Life for friends and family, Saturday, 30 Sept 2017, 12-6p.m. in Sequim. For details please contact: alta.thomas.service@gmail.com. A public service will be held at Tahoma National Cemetery. Date to be announced later.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to: Northwest Raptor & Wildlife Center, 1051 Oak Court, Sequim, WA 98382. Volunteer Hospice of Clallam County, 540 E 8th St, PA, WA. 98362

For some memorial service snapshots, click photo below:

October 27, 2017

Chronicles of Courage
Interviewed on September 08, 2006
Portland, Oregon
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FLYGIRLS

The Series

A Wartime Odyssey

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Tribute to Alta Corbett Thomas on flickr
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From Operation Fifinella operationfifinella.org 12/19/16:

ALTA THOMAS 43-4

December 19, 2016bgnagle
Alta Corbett Thomas, Sequim, Washington was born on May 26, 1918 in Portland, Oregon.

Early on, my life consisted of horses. My parents believed there was more to life than horses and sent me off to college. After college I “hung out” at Swan Island Airport in Willamette River.

I was working in the Pentagon for Air Branch G-2 when the WASP program emerged. I was granted a transfer and ordered to Houston for training with class 43-4. I was assigned to Tow Target Squadrons, 3rd and 1st, in Camp Davis, North Carolina and Liberty Field Camp Stewart, Georgia. Our mission were high and low tows, IFF identification friend or foe, and now and then flying an officer cross-country to Orlando, Baltimore, etc. We flew the A-24, A-25, B-34, UC78, for night searchlights, AT-7, and AT-ll for cross-country and instrument training.

Many of our planes, especially at Camp Davis, were a far cry from factory fresh. Consequently, we had a high regard for our ground crew. At Liberty Field, we were given the opportunity to attend officers training, but most of us opted to remain in the cockpit and fly missions. Those of us, two years together in 3rd and 1st TIS, have kept a round robin letter going for over 50 years.

After deactivation I wrote every aircraft company to no avail. Pilots were plentiful with the war in Europe winding down. The CAA recruited trainees to take over air, ground, and weather communications in Alaska. I reported to Boeing Field for training and was pleasantly surprised to find three other WASP had too. I shared my first assignment with Lorraine Nelson from class 44-5. At Gustavus, a new auxiliary airfield for Juneau, we were three communicators, each standing an eight-hour watch. At Yakutat, international code – di dah dits – became like a second language to me.

At Gustavus, I met Ralph Thomas, a CAA employee sent from Anchorage to synchronize the engines that powered the Bartow landing lights. We enjoyed each other, his stories, snowplowing the runway, barging to the fan marker, when off duty. He was a married man with family. Neither of us harbored a thought of ever meeting again.

In the Fifties, I lived in a cabin, sort of lived off the land, with a cat and dog in the Willamette National Forest, indulging a lust for writing verse. PM. is one of the last I wrote from there:

“Westward of ApriU Northward of June/ This side of evening/ but after noon! written off the calendar/ it happened all the same/ like Indian summer/ love came.”

Ralph Thomas was working at Cougar Dam in the Willamette National Forest, the south fork of the McKenzie River. We were married at my parents’ home in Portland on June 8, 1961. Ralph was 57. I was 43 and scared stiff.

My husband crushed his shoulder at the dam site, and we moved to Surf Pines, a sand dune on the north Oregon coast. Here our two daughters were born, grew to schoolgirls, and my husband healed. We clammed the sands and fished commercially the ocean. We moved to Sequim, Washington, where Ralph could farm and fish. On 15 acres, we grew hay, raised beef. Here we are at 94 and 80.

We have been greatly blessed by two sons from my husband’s former marriage and by our two daughters here on the peninsula:. Ralph Lee Thomas and family in Georgia, and John Thomas in Oregon. Our daughter Kelly Thomas is a paramedic, and Debbie McGoff is expecting her first child in September. My place this year is here.

From Peninsula Daily News peninsuladailynews.com 03/11/10

World War II's women fliers honored at Capitol; Sequim woman among ranks

WASHINGTON -- They flew planes during World War II but weren't considered real military pilots.

When their service ended, they had to pay their own bus fare home.

Alta Thomas of Sequim was among the Women Airforce Service Pilots -- or WASPs -- who got long-overdue recognition Wednesday.

They received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor given by Congress, in a ceremony on Capitol Hill.

Thomas attended the ceremony with her two daughters, Deborah and Kelly; her 11-year-old grandson, Noah; and Kelly's partner, Sherri Lewis.

"She was very moved," Kelly Thomas said late Wednesday night by phone.

"She told me, 'So many have given so much, I'm just so humbled to receive it.'"

The group plans to return to Washington state tonight.

About 200 women were on hand to receive the award.

Now mostly in their late 80s and early 90s, some came in wheelchairs, many sported dark blue uniforms, and one, June Bent of Westboro, Mass., clutched a framed photograph of a comrade who had died.

As a military band played "The Star-Spangled Banner," one of the women who had been sitting in a wheelchair stood up and saluted through the entire song as a relative gently supported her back.

Thomas, now 91, became a WASP at age 25.

The WASPs, the first women in history to fly U.S. military aircraft, took on risky training missions over U.S. bases to prepare male troops for battle overseas during 1943 and 1944, but received no military benefits.

'A privilege, adventure'

In an interview at her Sequim home last month, Thomas remembered flying as a pure thrill.

"It was such an absolute privilege," she said. "It was an adventure."

Of the more than 1,000 women who received their wings through the WASP program, 11 are known to be living in Washington state.

Joining Thomas in the Washington state coalition for the ceremony were Mary Call of Mount Vernon, Nancy Dunnam of Bellevue, Dorothy Olsen of University Place, Mary Jean Sturdevant of Tacoma, Josephine Swift from Seattle, and a relative on behalf of Margaret Martin of Oak Harbor, said U.S. Sen. Marie Cantwell, D-Mountlake Terrace, in a prepared statement.

Members of the Washington state congressional delegation are working with the Women's Memorial Foundation to ensure the remaining four women -- Elizabeth Munoz of Pomeroy, Enid Fisher of Olympia, Elizabeth Dybbro of Des Moines and Lois Auchterlonie of Anacortes -- who could not travel to the nation's capital for today's ceremony receive their medals, Cantwell said.

'All your daughters'

"Women Airforce Service Pilots, we are all your daughters; you taught us how to fly," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to serve as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives., during the ceremony in Emancipation Hall of the U.S. Capitol building.

In accepting the award, WASP pilot Deanie Parrish, 88, of Waco, Texas, said the women had volunteered without expectation of thanks.

Their mission was to fly noncombat missions to free up male pilots to fly overseas.

"We did it because our country needed us," Parrish said.

WASP Ty Hughes Killen, 85, of Lancaster, Calif., put it more simply: "We're a bunch of tough old ladies," she said in an interview.

Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, noted at the ceremony that when the unit was disbanded in 1944, many of the women had to pay from their own bus fare home from an airfield in Sweetwater, Texas.

Thirty-eight WASPS were killed in service in World War II. But they were long considered civilians, not members of the military, and thus were not entitled to the pay and benefits given to men.

They were afforded veteran status in 1977 after a long fight. It's estimated that about 300 of the more than 1,000 WASPs are still alive.

Each of the WASPs was given a bronze duplicate of the original Congressional Gold Medal, which will be donated to the Smithsonian Institution in honor of the WASPs.

Cantwell called the Women Airforce Service Pilots "unsung members of 'the Greatest Generation' . . . trailblazers who had a tremendous impact on the role of women in the military today."

From History Link historylink.org 03/11/13:

Women Airforce Service Pilots from Washington

By Duane Colt Denfeld, Ph.D. Posted 3/11/2013 HistoryLink.org Essay 10339

During World War II, women aviators took on flying roles for the U.S. Army Air Force. As civilian pilots, they ferried aircraft, towed targets for aerial and ground antiaircraft fire, and flight-tested aircraft. Some 25,000 women applied for the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program, with 1,830 accepted and 1,047 graduating. They flew more than 60 million miles and put in 300,000 flight hours. The state of Washington was well represented in the effort. There were dangers and 38 pilots were killed in training or on missions, five of them from Washington. The program lasted about two years before being disbanded, but the women pilots became pathfinders who altered aviation history and American society. This essay describes some of the many with ties to Washington who served as Women Airforce Service Pilots. All those who served contributed to the war effort and demonstrated that women could fly as well as or better than men.
Before World War II, two famous pilots proposed to the Army Air Corps that women pilots support national defense. In 1939 Jacqueline "Jackie" Cochran (1906-1980) presented a plan for women pilots flying non-combat roles. Nancy Harkness Love (1914-1976) independently made a similar but a narrower proposal that women ferry aircraft from factories to airfields. Their proposals met with opposition as they encountered the sexist belief that women were not suited to be pilots. However, the need for pilots and the opportunity to free male pilots for combat helped the case. The effort also had the support of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), who lobbied for women's flying programs. Finally, in September 1942 Love's Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron and Cochran's Women's Flying Training Detachment were organized to fly military aircraft. They were merged on August 5, 1943, into the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). Cochran commanded the program with Love as executive officer, Air Transport Ferrying division.
Washington Women Among the First
Twenty-five thousand women applied for the WASP program and only 1,830 were accepted. Of those, 1,074 graduated. The Women Airforce Service Pilots flew more than 60 million miles and put in 300,000 flight hours. They had an excellent safety record and exceeded expectations. Washington was well represented in the women's aviation programs. Candidates and pilots from the state were remarkably similar in motive and experience: They met the program requirements for flight experience, with many already holding licenses, and they had a desire to serve the nation and contribute to the war effort. They were trailblazers who left the relatively short program with the confidence to do exceptional things with the rest of their lives.
Barbara Erickson London (1920-2013) was born in Seattle. During her second year at the University of Washington in 1939, she entered the Civilian Pilot Training Program, a federally subsidized program intended to increase the pool of trained pilots in readiness for war. She was able to obtain an instructor rating despite limitations on women in the more advanced courses. In 1940 she competed in national aviation events. In August 1942, while an instructor at Walla Walla, she was accepted into the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron. She became the 14th to qualify. Barbara Jane Erickson, or "B.J." as her squadron mates called her, ferried aircraft from factories to airfields. In one five-day period, she made four 2,000-mile flights. She commanded the 73-member ferrying squadron at Long Beach, California. In 1943 she was the first woman pilot to receive the Air Medal. Following the war, she was turned down for pilot positions as airlines did not accept women as pilots. Despite the discrimination, Erickson continued in aviation by participating in air races and airport administration. She married a pilot and their two daughters continued women's advances in aviation.
Dorothy Kocher Olsen (b. 1917) was born in Woodburn, Oregon, and fell in love with flight as a youth while attending air shows at the Oregon State Fair. She joined a flying club and became an excellent pilot. When she joined the Women Airforce Service Pilots in 1943, she ferried aircraft, making 61 flights delivering many types of planes. After the war Olsen returned to the Pacific Northwest and married a Washington State Patrol officer. They moved in 1960 to University Place, where Dorothy Olsen continues to live in February 2013.
Alta Corbett Thomas (b. 1918) was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. After graduating from Smith College she spent her free time at Portland's Swan Island airport falling in love with aviation. During World War II, Alta Corbett went to Washington, D.C., and worked for the War Department in the Air Branch. Corbett was accepted into the Women Airforce Service Pilot program in 1943 and towed targets, first at the Camp Davis antiaircraft school in North Carolina and then at Camp Stewart in Georgia. This required that she fly above antiaircraft guns that fired at the targets she towed behind her plane. She also flew night missions to train searchlight crews in detecting and tracking aircraft. Following the war Corbett applied for pilot positions with no success. To remain in aviation she served in airport communications in Alaska. Alta Corbett returned to the Pacific Northwest and in 1961 married Ralph Thomas (1904-2003). They eventually settled in Sequim, Clallam County.
WASP Program Expands
Opal Vivian Hicks Fagan (1915-2000) grew up in Everett and joined the Women Airforce Service Pilots for the adventure of flying and to serve her country. During her 1944 training she took part in tests to demonstrate that women could fly while having their menstrual period. An argument against women pilots was that they would be unable to fly at this time. The tests disproved the prejudice. Fagan was involved in ferrying flights and when she heard that the program might be disbanded, she worked to get time in high-horsepower aircraft. When the program was disbanded, she gave flying lessons in Prosser, Washington. She opened a flying school that catered to returning veterans using their educational benefits. In 1949 she went to Hawaii and was turned down as an Aloha Airlines pilot because she was a woman, but was hired to teach Aloha pilots instrument flying.
Mary Barnes Sturdevant (b. 1921) was born and raised in Tacoma. Because she was poor, the women's pilot program represented a great opportunity for her to become a pilot. Her wartime flying experience included surviving a crash in a basic trainer. She was flying with another trainee when the plane's engine died. The aircraft broke apart and crashed. The other trainee was permanently disabled while Mary Barnes recovered from her injuries.
Nancy Nordhoff Dunnam (b. 1923) was from Seattle. Her father had been an aviator in World War I and introduced her to flight. Her first plane ride was with him. Nancy Nordhoff, a graduate of Seattle's Garfield High School, was attending the University of Washington when accepted into the Women Airforce Service Pilot program. Another Garfield and University of Washington graduate, Carol Nicholson Lewis (b. 1924), entered training in February 1944 with Nordhoff. Also in this class were Margaret Eleanor Neyman Martin (b. 1921), of Sequim and Seattle College, and Jean Isabella Landa (1917-1980) of Opportunity, Washington, a University of Washington graduate. The University of Washington had about eight women who became World War II pilots.
Before the war Marjory Foster Munn (1921-2009) was a beautician in West Virginia. She won a contest whose prize was free flying lessons. The lessons changed her life, creating a lifetime devotion to flying. Marjory Foster obtained her license before joining the Women Airforce Service Pilots program in 1944. She was a test pilot in Alabama and flew repaired aircraft to Great Falls, Montana. Foster also qualified in the P-39 pursuit or fighter aircraft and the B-25 bomber. Her most dramatic event came during a landing when another plane landed on top of her airplane. Its propeller chopped through Foster's plane's fuselage and its wing but Foster was unhurt. After the war she remained in aviation by first working in communications and then as a stewardess. In 1949 she received a commission in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. Lieutenant Foster served in administrative roles and married Captain James Munn (1923-2002) in 1953 while assigned to Okinawa. They returned to the United States and she was promoted to captain. They left the service and moved to Seattle in 1962. Marjory Munn graduated from the University of Washington in 1965. In 1983, she was selected to serve on the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services. During this three-year appointment she inspected military bases to evaluate military women's treatment.
Five Who Sacrificed
Thirty-eight pilots in the WASP program were killed in training or on mission flights. Since the women pilots were not actually in the military, they had no benefits, not even burial coverage. For a number of those killed, fellow pilots contributed to ship the body home for burial. Often another pilot would accompany the body to the deceased pilot's hometown. The deaths included five Washington women.
Dorothy F. Scott (1920-1944) was killed in a mid-air collision on December 3, 1943. She was on approach to landing at the Palm Springs, California, airbase. Scott had clearance while a second plane, a fighter, was next in landing order. The faster fighter overtook Scott's plane and crashed into it. Scott, of Oroville, Washington, was a 1941 graduate of the University of Washington. She had earned a private pilot's license by the time she graduated. In 1942 she obtained an instructor's license and was teaching new pilots at the Moscow-Pullman Airport. She joined the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron in November 1942. She was one of the original members of the ferrying squadron. She went to Love Field in Texas for ferrying duty following graduation. Scott was then assigned to Palm Springs for pursuit (fighter) aircraft training. The Oroville Airport is named in honor of Dorothy F. Scott.
Jayne Elizabeth Erickson (1921-1944) had a collision over the Avenger Field training base in Texas while on an April 16, 1944, solo flight. Erickson was born in Seattle and moved with her family to Preston, Washington. She attended Preston High School and majored in art at the University of Washington. She moved to Yakima and took flying lessons there.
Katherine "Kay" Dussaq (1911-1944) died in a November 26, 1944 crash. She was from Dayton, Washington.
Jeanne Lewellen Norbeck (1912-1944) lost her life while testing a repaired BT-13 basic trainer in South Carolina on October 16, 1944. Jeanne Lewellen graduated from Washington State College with an English major in 1933. She went to work as a secretary on the Grand Coulee dam construction project and met engineer Ed Norbeck (1916-1991). Ed Norbeck took a job in Hawaii and Jeanne Lewellen joined him. They married there in 1940. Both learned to fly. Ed Norbeck joined the Army when war broke out and Jeanne was an early WASP pilot. Jeanne Norbeck's name is inscribed on the Washington State University Veterans Memorial.
Mary Louise Webster (1919-1944) was a passenger on a December 9, 1944, flight from Frederick, Oklahoma, to Tulsa when the plane iced up and crashed near Tulsa. The crash killed Webster and two others. Webster was born in Ellensburg and attended Holy Names Academy in Seattle and Seattle Business College. She had worked as a secretary in Ellensburg and had flight training there and in Yakima. Webster earned her Women Airforce Service Pilot wings on October 16, 1944. She is the only woman whose name is listed on the War Memorial at the Kittitas County Courthouse.
Quick End and Delayed Recognition
The Women Airforce Service Pilot program ended on December 20, 1944. Marjory Foster Munn later described disbandment as like a funeral, a horrible shock. Many of the pilots desired to continue flying as a profession, but with the large number of male pilots available at the end of the war, few women were able to locate positions. Some turned to private aviation and many returned to other activities. The Women Airforce Service Pilots' contribution was quickly forgotten. That is until the 1970s and efforts by the women to achieve due recognition. The women spoke of being denied military benefits and assistance for burial, and of not receiving the educational benefits afforded other war veterans, or the respect.
In 1977 President Jimmy Carter (b. 1924) signed legislation granting veteran status to the women pilots. On March 10, 2009, President Barack Obama (b. 1961) further honored their wartime success by awarding all of them the Congressional Gold Medal. The 38 killed in training or on duty received the award posthumously. At the time of the awards, approximately 300 Women Airforce Service Pilots were alive, 12 of them living in Washington.
In February 2013, eleven veterans of the Women Airforce Service Pilots are residents of Washington: Lois Dobbins Auchteronie (b. 1918), Mary "Pat" Hiller Call (b. 1919), Nancy Nordhoff Dunnam, Elizabeth White Dybbro (b. 1923), Margaret Neyman Martin, Elizabeth Keatts Munoz (b. 1917), Dorothy Kocher Olsen, Andrea Shaw (b. 1919), Mary Barnes Sturdevant, Josephine Keating Swift (b. 1919), and Alta Corbett Thomas.

McChord honors WASP on 100th birthday
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