James Edward Rich

He served in the Eighth Air Force as a tail gunner on a B17, appropriately named Heaven Can Wait. His crew flew 30 missions over Europe and He received the Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters, five battle stars and the Presidential Unit Citation.

After his service, he provided for his family by operating Rich Produce for 35 years.

He later retired in the country, where he enjoyed living on his 2 acres in Tulare. He loved raising rabbits, sheep, gardening, and riding his horse. He especially enjoyed visits from his grandchildren.

Jim was never idle; he always found something to do. At age 89 he began to restore a Volkswagen bug! We think it reminded him a little of his younger days working on hot rods and racing with his brother Arthur. He was a 1st place winner many times!

Jim’s family and friends will miss him.

His mother and dad and seven of his siblings, his wife Arlene and son Ed preceded Jim in death.

Jim is survived by his wife Patsy; his daughter Sue Bennetts and her husband, Dan and grandchildren Aaron, Amy and Amber, great grandchildren Jocelyn, Derek, Emma, Nathan, and Sarah; grandson Christopher; his son Dennis and his wife, Kisa and granddaughter Brandy Spray, great grandchildren Dennis, Dustin, and Kyle.

The Rich family would like to thank the staff at Kaweah Delta Dist. Hospital and the nurses and staff of Kaweah Delta Hospice; a special thank you to the staff at Quail Park Enhanced Assisted Living for your compassion and care. (Thank you Chimmi, you made our dark hour a little brighter.)

My Father

I have often wondered how my father was able to find the strength and courage that kept him through peril, adversity, and sorrow during WWII.

I’ve heard it said that a hero is just ordinary person acting in extraordinary circumstances.

So, does that mean we all have the capability to become heroes while living our ordinary lives?

I believe that God has an endless supply of His grace for just such times.

While making calls this week to family, I spoke to a cousin whom I had not seen in over 40 years. Ronnie Rich. Ronnie is a son to Jim’s brother Ted. Ted is 95 and still gardening and cooking everyday. For many years he was a chef working in the best restaurants. He is the last living son of the John Thomas Rich family.

I learned a lot about the Rich family that morning on the phone, and before I hung up, I began to understand my father a little better. There’s one thing Ronnie said that really stuck in my mind. “Anything your ancestors have done is in you. You can do what they have done. It’s in your genes.

Well, if you knew Jim Rich, you new he had stubborn streak.

My husband says that I come by that naturally. I used to take offense until I realized that stubbornness was just determination and strength in disguise!

I’ve seen that strength and determination in my daughter Amber, as she cared for my dying mother. I have seen it in Amy, Aaron, and Christopher. I saw it in my brother Ed.

I realize now that God wove the threads of determination and strength into the Rich family.

My father comes from a long line of fighters and adventurers. His ancestors lived in Scotland 900 years before touching foot upon Ireland. They settled there for a short while. Then, the English invaded. The Richs’ sided with the Irish. They thought it was just not right for one country to take another.

They fought with the Irish, but when the Hangman’s Order was given, they decided to sail to America and settle there.

They arrived in America in 1749. Traveling by horseback and wagon, the family would find a place to settle. Some became Texas Rangers, lawyers, military men, doctors, a pro tem in the Senate, and a few horse thieves. Some married Indians from the Cherokee and Choctaw tribes, who were Shaman. Shaman could speak to the animals. Which explains why my Grandpa Thomas could charm a bird out of a tree and whisper to horses; and my Aunt Ruby could break a horse! There was a Lieutenant Rich who would travel with Roger’s Rangers and map every river from Canada to Mexico. Captain Rogers and Lieutenant Rich are mentioned in a book: The History of the Sierra Nevada’s.

My Dad’s ancestors were ‘no shrinking violets!” And neither was my father!

My father was born December 1, 1922 in Lindsay, Oklahoma. He was the youngest of 9 children born to Amanda and Thomas Franklin Rich. He lived on a ranch. His mother would ride her horse each day to work with a Veterinarian. She loved that job! Thomas plowed the fields with his horses and planted crops on rainfall because there was no irrigation. They grew field corn, peanuts, and cotton.

One day the sky grew black and a cyclone was coming. Amanda grabbed the boys and their pillows and headed for the cellar. Giant hail balls were falling. Undaunted, Thomas just sat in his chair and rode out the storm. When dad came out of the cellar, the barn was gone. They would find metal from the barn wrapped around the trees like paper. Their barbed wire fence would be found a quarter of a mile down at the neighbors.

They would rebuild the barn.

Later, Thomas decided to go to California. The older siblings were in Delano working on the Jenkins ranch. The family left someone in charge of the ranch. My dad’s older brother Victor drove the family’s 1929 Pontiac to California because Thomas never had a license to drive.

They worked a few years and housing was provided. The family decided to go back to Oklahoma. They had a big auction and sold all the horses, mules, everything! This time they would drive out to California in a brand new 1933 Buick!

My dad had missed part of third grade due to the move. He would bounce around to a few schools. He especially remembered Ms. Costa in Cross Creek. When he entered she asked him “Do you know your multiplies and divides?” He said “yes”. Then you’re skipping 5th grade and jumpin to 6th. My dad said to me “So I jumped!” Dad would only finish 3 years of high school. He liked P.E. and math, but not much else. He was ready to see the world outside that farm.

Each summer, the Golf brothers would head up to Healdsburg to pick fruit for Jack Golf’s uncle. At 17 Dad decided to go with them. Healdsburg was a small town close to Santa Rosa.

Soon the war broke out and the boys got a job building an airport. My dad drove truck, dug ditches, and poured cement to build airplane pads for the airplanes. The boys had to pay $10 to join the union! That was expensive so they paid $5 down at a time.

Jack Golf said “It’s just a matter of time till were drafted. Let’s go home and join up.”

My father went to the induction place in Fresno and joined up. And this is his story:

“They shipped us out to Monterey and issued us clothing. We were there 2 or 3 days and got orders to go to Kesslerville, Mississippi. I had 3 months basic training. Then I was sent to Denver, Colorado to Machine Gun School for 5 weeks. I spent 7 weeks and memorized every part of the machine gun there was. I’d take it down and put it back together hundreds of times.”

“I met a girl there and she had a car. We went to Golden, Colorado where Buffalo Bill was buried. There was money, change all over the grave. People left it to maintain the grave. It was nice.”

They sent us to Indian Springs, Nevada. They put us in an oxygen chambers and said, “We want to see how high can you go.” I held a pen in my hand. I got up to 30,000 feet and then my pen just dropped out of my hand. They let us down real slow. If they let you down fast you get the bends. They let us down real easy.”

“Then they put us in a fuselage and rolled us upside down and over. It didn’t make me sick.”

“I got in an AT6 training fighter plane, a two seater. I was trained using a 30-caliber machine gun. I shot toe targets. The pilot would go down, make a dive at it. We had bullets with paint on ‘em to see who shot what. There was a boy there named Savage. He never hit the target any time. He washed out!

“I never stayed in one place very long. I shipped out to Peyote, Texas. I shot air to ground strafin shooter targets. We flew quite a lot at night.

Joe Rogers was our Bombardier and we dropped paint bomb to hit the target. One time we were flying around and Jack Klein (our navigator) got us lost. Tom was a good pilot. Johnny Dunn was our copilot. He got out of his seat one night and said “Jim, I want you to fly this airplane awhile.” I kep her on the radio beam for 20 minutes.”

“We’d circle around in that B-17 dropping bombs in a ring of lights. One time another plane went the wrong way. Tom said, “That cowboy got our wheels!” “A lot of accidents there.”

“They formed our crew in Peyote, Texas. We finished our training there.”

“We got to Nebraska and we were issued a new airplane.”

“We were going out of Nebraska to New Jersey and flew in that B-17 right over Niagara Falls.”

“In New Jersey there was snow on the ground. Jack Klein was a skilled skier. He was born at Walnut Creek, California. So we decided that we would check out skiing. Me, I was down more times than up! And at the end of the day, I had enough of that.”

“We refueled in New Jersey. There was snow on the ground. The runway was slick. Planes sliding all over the place! Some boys couldn’t stop and busted Plexiglas off the B-17. They had to go back.”

“Because of the snow and ice, the engines on the planes froze up. So we had heaters and wrapped canvas around each motor, trying to warm ‘em up so they’d start. One person had to be there all the time with it. They had a place for us to stay and we were there 3 days.”

“One day a guy came in with a jeep and he left the key in it because that was regulation. Tom and Bill Horning took that jeep. Tom said “I think those engines are thawed and its time for us to get out of here.” We all got inside that jeep and got the motors started and flew outta there.”

“The rest of the trip took us into Scotland. We flew out over that water sometimes right above it. (It took about 16 hours.)”

“In Scotland they were training a lot of skeet with shotguns. The guns had a skill ring in it. We practiced shootin ‘em. Shot a lot of guns! Boy that Scotland was a dirty place!”

“One day we took the airplane and flew into Labrador, England to fuel up. People were cheering as we got off. There were English girls everywhere.”

“We took a smoky train and later we joined the 407th squadron 92nd Bomb Group at Pottingham, England.”

The 92nd Bomb Group would become his brothers. He would be the tail gunner in his 12-man crew. Flying on a B-17 named Heaven Can Wait. He told me “Some fella named Vargas painted the girl on the side.”

My father would experience the most harrowing of circumstances. He would see head on collisions of B-17s. He would pull a crewmember from the turret that had been killed and take his place. He would become a warrior like his ancestors. He told me he always placed his flack jacket underneath him in battle. Once he dug out 2 pieces of shells from the airplane and kept them for a long time. He didn’t know what happened to them. His crew flew over London a few times. He remembered big balloons and big cables hanging down over London to keep the German planes from flying too low.

His next to the last mission was Omaha Beach. He told me,“Ike and the Chaplin spoke to us.” “They’re gonna throw everything they got at you!”

“It turned out to be the easiest mission I ever went on!” When we got back we were asked if we wanted to go again in the afternoon for our last mission. We said “No, we’ll take our chances next time.”

They were to draw Leipzig, Germany…. 8 hrs. and 35 minutes into enemy territory.

The day of his last mission Dad looked at the bulletin board to see who was to fly that day. His name wasn’t there. So he said to me:

“I went back and laid on my bunk. Tom came in and said,

“Jim are you sick?”

“No, I’m not sick, my names not up.”

“Come on we’re goin to headquarters to find out about this.” "Cornel Griffith had made out that flight thing.”

Tom said, “How come my tail gunner’s not flyin with us? Fitzgerald got shot down when they took a guy from another crew, and I’m not finishing any boys up on my own! We are going to finish everyone together!”

“So we covered up that boy with comforters and put flack jackets underneath. He was scared to death. And we flew that last mission all of us together. (13 men)”. “Tom finished everyone together.”

“We stayed in the barracks for quite a while waitin for a ride. We had been issued two 45-hand guns. We never took our guns because we heard if the Germans captured you and you had a gun they would shoot you. So we never carried them. I put my guns in my duffle, I was gonna take ‘em home but when we were called out they announced they would search our duffels for guns, so I turned mine over. They’d never been fired.

We moved to a big building by the coast. That night we moved on the boat (the Queen Mary). As we slept, we went out to sea. The German subs were out there somewhere. The ships crew was all from England and I ask one of ‘em “You ever get trapped with German subs?”

He said “Well, its one of the fastest boats! I’ve seen her on her side one time!”

“We zigzagged all across that ocean.”

“We came into Ellis Island, NY and got off the boat there. We took the train from NY through Louisiana and zigzagged all over the US to California.” When we got home, T.J. Higgins who was 6 months younger than me said “This was the worst job in any branch of the service. They trained us and we did our mission and we all got back home!”

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Home to family and friends….Home…. to peace and freedom….Brought home by the Grace of God……Step by step the way to freedom was trodden…

When I think of my ancestors, I think of

Acts17:28:

From one man God made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.

My father displayed extraordinary courage, in extraordinary times.

After the war, my father would go back to his ordinary life.

He would meet my mother at The Rocky Mountain Dancehall in Goshen and sweep her off her feet. He was a fantastic two stepper!

They would marry, have children, become grandparents, and live their ordinary lives.

He would race Sloppy Jallopies (I think a talent handed down through the family from Runnin Moonshine during Prohibition).

He would ignore speed limits!

He’d enjoy boating, skiing and fishing, gardening, and playing cards with Wiladene and Jack Herring along with Aunt Mildred and Uncle Uriel.

He would operate Rich Produce for 34 years with his excellent math skills and then experience the loss of a wife, and a son.

Always looking forward, he would forge ahead and carve a new relationship with Patsy. They would enjoy being married for 15 years.

My Father lived a long life, an ordinary life in extraordinary times.

Life on earth is a test. The good news is that God want you to pass the tests of life.

God keeps his promise, and he will not allow you to be tested beyond your power to remain firm; at the time you are put to the test, he will give you the strength to endure it, and so provide you with a way out.

(1 Corinthians 10:13)

His Grace is sufficient you and me.

(written by Sue Bennett)

Graveside service will be held at the Visalia District Cemetery on Monday, June 17th at 10am.

In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Kaweah Delta HospiceFoundation, 900 Oak Ave., Visalia, CA 93291 in honor of James E. Rich and designated for hospice room/home.

Condolences may be offered at www.millerchapel.com.

Arrangements entrusted to Miller Memorial Chapel, 1120 W. Goshen Avenue, Visalia, CA 93291 (559) 732-8371.