Posted: 12/24/07
Local hero recounts many stories of his days as a pilot in the military
By Daniel McGonigle
Argus Managing Editor
And when the plane, bound for Minneapolis departed from the San Antonio International Airport it was his old friend Chuck who would wave goodbye.
"He is my most very, very loyal and faithful friend," said Albert P. Blosch.
The pair, roughly 17 years of age apart, came to be friends through their connections to the very flying machine that would take Blosch some 1,200 miles from Chuck to live with his granddaughter in Brownsville.
A pilot
Blosch spent much of his adult working life as a flight instructor in the military, reaching the rank of 2nd Lieutenant. During World War II, Blosch trained many pilots and oversaw several bombing raids.
When his military career would eventually come to a close, he would log over 22,000 hours in flight.
This of course, didn't include his time, during a period of his life when he was out of the service, as a crop duster.
"You don't log hours, you log acres," said Blosch. "I spent some time crop spraying. That was a good money making deal if you were careful and were concerned for the farmer."
Shortly after the completion of World War II, Blosch would return to civilian life and would work a variety of jobs, including as a crop duster, in Texas and the surrounding southern states.
It was during that period of his life that he would respond to an ad in a newspaper requesting "machinists, no experience required."
"Well, I thought I could do a pretty good job, but wondered what kind of place would want someone without any experience."
Puzzled, Blosch responded to the ad.
"I went and interviewed for the job in Amarillo," he recalls. "They were interested in hiring me and when I asked where job was they told me ëLos Alamos, New Mexico.'"
He would take on employment working for the government at the Atomic Energy Commission for a year building the Mark 6.
The Mark 6 nuclear bomb was an American nuclear bomb based on the earlier Mark 4 nuclear bomb and its predecessor, the Mark 3 Fat Man nuclear bomb design.
The Mark 6 was produced from 1951-1955 and saw service until 1962. Seven variants and versions were produced, with a total production run of all models of 1100 bombs. (Wikipedia).
During his time with the AEC, Blosch would become eligible for a promotion.
"I kept getting these letters from the military," said Blosch. "Finally I showed one to my supervisor. He told me ëI wish you hadn't shown me that.'
"Why," I asked?
"I was supposed to inform you that you were being promoted, but instead I'm going to have to fire you.'" he was told.
Seems the people he worked for at Los Alamos wanted his loyalty to lie within their department. When they found out of his previous military experience, Blosch became expendable.
"I called my wife and said ëI'm gonna get drunk," he laughed. "She called some friends of ours and they said ëI'll be right there.'"
The couple arrived with a fifth and a pint, and Blosch, again a former military man, drank the entire fifth himself. For good measure he would finish off the remainder of the pint as well.
The next day, it was a Thursday in fact, Blosch would send a letter.
"So I wrote a letter to the military and told them either to request that I report back for active duty or they can keep their stinking letters out of my mailbox," he smiled.
Rejoins the service
In only a few days time, the military would respond to Blosch's request. He would be back in the service training pilots for missions during a new conflict; Vietnam.
Blosch flew several missions and received credit for having served four tours, most famous was the Son Tay Raid.
"Our mission was to recover prisoners of war," he recalled. "We didn't get them all out of there, but they moved them all to a location which was called "Hanoi Hilton. They knew something big was about to happen, or had happened, they just didn't know what."
Chuck
He'd recalled seeing that name somewhere, "Charles F. Richards."
Lieutenant Albert P. Blosch was reading the name on a list of casualties from the only C-130 plane that crashed during the entire Vietnam war.
"We'd crossed paths somewhere during our time in North Carolina," he would recall.
Two pilots, both sharing the same goal and many of the same experiences.
It took the military a week to discover the wrecked C-130 plane the two pilots dead in the cockpit, and Charles F. Richards trapped in the rear of the plane.
"His wife had to return a $6,000 check to the government when they discovered that he was still alive," said Blosch.
Years later Blosch would be living in San Antonio, Texas and he would join a Baptist Church. He would meet a Charles (Chuck) F. Richards. Blosch would tell his Richard's wife "I knew someone named Charles Richards but he died in Vietnam."
"That's my Chuck," she would reply back.
The two would forge a friendship that remains strong to this day.
It was Chuck who would see Blosch off on his journey from San Antonio to move to Brownsville to live with his youngest granddaughter Donna (Dan) Boser.
"I couldn't believe we were so close together and yet so far," he would recall of his time in North Carolina.
Blosch and his wife Beverly had a daughter. She would have three children of her own. Those children would go on to have "a bucket of grandchildren," according to Blosch.
Over the years, Blosch would take his grandchildren up in the plane from time to time and do moves like the barrel roll and other maneuvers from his days as a pilot.
He would recall landing a plane whose landing gear had failed which he would later be touted as a "hero," for doing.
"As a young pilot I did quite a few things I wasn't supposed to do," he said. "But the Lord meant for me to do those things. He knew what was going to happen even before I did. It wasn't my fists flying the plane that day, it was the Lord using my fists to do the work."
That crash landing was in 1966. Blosch hasn't flown since 1989 but he has 22,000 memories to go with his 22,000 logged hours of flight.
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