With Sioux City Men in Service
Private Robert Thacker, son of Mrs. Agnes Thacker, 316 W. First Street, is enrolled in the army air corps technical training school at Sheppard field, Texas.
Source: The Sioux City Journal, January 26, 1942
Prepare For Takeoff – Aviation Cadet Warren W. White, left, of Newton, looks on as his classmate, Robert L. Thacker, 316 W. First Street, Sioux City, studies the instrument panel of his basic training plane before taking off for a practice flight over the “West Point of the air” where the two Iowans are undergoing intensive training. They soon will move to advanced schools to qualify for the silver pilot’s wings of a flying officer in the army air forces.
Sources: The Sioux City Journal, November 30, 1942 (photo included)
Sioux Cityan In Big Mission
Lieut. Robert Thacker Has Part in Successful Fighter Patrol
An Eighth A.A.F. Fighter Station, England- Celebrating his group’s 100th mission over enemy territory, First Lieut. Robert L. Thacker, Sioux City, Iowa, Thunderbolt fighter pilot, recently added a substantial contribution to the final score of a fighter patrol carried out over Germany.
He shared in the destruction of four German locomotives, strafed a German railroad station, and scored hits on dispersal huts and barracks on a Nazi airdrome.
The total score for the lightning stab in Germany was; 11 enemy planes destroyed; 6 probably destroyed and 12 others damaged. In addition, there were 7 locomotives shot up; 2 complete coal trains derailed and wrecked; several airplane hangars set afire; 4 flak towers damaged and a German staff car and its personnel strafed. Even a Flying Fortress, which had crash-landed on a German airfield, was shot up and rendered useless.
Lieut. Thacker, 23, is the son of Mrs. Agnes Thacker, 316 W. First Street, Sioux City. He was graduated from Central High in 1938, and prior to his enlistment in the air force, he was employed as an automobile parts salesman.
Lieut. Thacker won his wings in March, 1943, and now holds the air medal and three oak leaf clusters, “for meritorious service in aerial flight over enemy occupied Europe.”
Source: Sioux City Journal, April 19, 1944
