A Life Well Built

From the tapestry of human history and experience, there sometimes come forth individuals who rise above the fabric’s common braid. And these souls seem destined for great things. Dick Fisher was one of these souls. It was a seemingly random moment in America, but World War I was about to begin in earnest. Airplanes flew in countless air corridors. Soldiers shot their weapons and trained for war. Human endeavor was growing in leaps and bounds, and military conflict for the United States of America looked unavoidable. In Alice, Ohio, Perry and Vergie Fisher were in their own moment. She was giving birth to their first child, and Perry looked on, holding her hand. It was a warm morning on July 7, 1914. On the second floor of a modest house on his grandfather’s farm, Richard Evan Fisher came into this world. Time did not stop. The wind didn’t gust, nor could any haunting distant church bells be heard. But that morning, a very special individual joined the human race - one who would care honestly about the people he encountered, love and learn deeply, and who was truly a natural born leader. This child was to be an extraordinary soldier, father, husband, pilot, engineer, and friend. He would go on to a life of leadership, and he didn’t even know it yet. Right then he was a helpless crying infant in charge of nothing. Ohio National Guard Dick’s physics and algebra teacher, John Emde, took an interest in his shooting skills. Mr. Emde had a rifle-pistol team, and Dick was the student head of it. He called Dick Fishhead. One day he asked, “Hey, Fishhead, how’d you like to shoot some real rifles and pistols?” Dick said, “I thought I was already doing that on the team.” Mr. Emde said, “I have a little outfit that goes out every Sunday and spends some time on the range. You interested?” Dick agreed. Mr. Emde picked him up at the house the next day and they went to the rifle-pistol range. Dick amazed the older men by hitting a bulls-eye every time he pulled the trigger, whether he was standing, sitting, or prone. He actually remembered hitting every single target that day. Emde said, “I’ve never even seen anyone do that.” He added, “You want to come back next weekend? We shoot every Sunday.” Dick started practicing with this group, and then one day Mr. Emde said, “We’re going in uniform this time. So we’ll have to get you fitted.” They provided him with an Army private’s uniform. It was the old-fashioned World War I type, with wrap leggings and an old campaign hat. He wore it home proudly. When he walked in to his house, his mother said, “Richie, what the devil happened to you?” “Ma, I’m in the army!” he said. “Excuse me?” Early Flying Days Dick’s flying experiences started around 1928 with an Aranka C-3, which was a monoplane. It was very small and had only one wing. The passenger sat only four feet off the ground before the plane took off. His father bought the Aranka from a farmer friend who had bought one, taken it apart, and found that he couldn’t reassemble it. Dick’s dad said, “If you can put it together, I’ll buy it for you.” Dick studied the engine and figured it out in short order, and that was the way he started flying. Dick always thought it was a fair deal his dad had offered, and he learned a lot from the lesson. The maximum speed was only about 45 or 50 miles per hour. His Aranka C3 was bare bones, but it was an airplane nonetheless. And in those days, you could get a flying license if you were at least 14, which Dick was. But at that time, eighteen was the legal age to apply for a driver’s license in Ohio. Dick couldn’t drive a car, then, but he could fly an airplane. His mother often drove him to the airport, where he would go and fly his plane. As might be expected of a fourteen-year-old, Dick pushed the limits of the small plane. He soon found others that were interested in flying, so they formed a flying club at the Akron airport. They eventually ended up with six teen aged boys. They would meet at the airport in an enormous hangar which had just been built for airships called zeppelins. The first zeppelin was named the Akron, and the next one was the Macon. Both were destroyed in rainstorms very early in their life because they were lighter than air and therefore extremely difficult to control. Dick was actually in the high school choir that sang the Godspeed songs for the dedication of the Macon. A few years passed, and they started renting the hangar out to businesses. The kids saw that the doors were open on each end, and thought, “Hey, there’s no reason we can’t fly through that thing.” And they did. Every Sunday their little club would go down and fly through this “zep dock,” as they called it. After almost a year, they all found signs on their windshields that read, “Before you try to fly through the zep dock, you may notice that one door is closed. We will always keep one door closed. So don’t try to fly through it.” Well, a little sign couldn’t stop teenagers. So they went out and made a mockup of the zep dock in a great big farmer’s field to see if they could fly in and turn around and come back. They spent hours and hours trying to pull it off. But it wouldn’t quite work, because when making a turn in an airplane, one had to get it up at an angle, using lift. The young pilots simply didn’t have the power or the speed to do it. A man named Jimmy Doolittle took an interest in the kids. He took the young pilots under his wing and acted as their advisor, which was invaluable. He later became famous as an air racer, and he won the Cleveland race, which was quite an honor. After three wins, Shell Oil made him give up racing for safety reasons. Jimmy taught them to be good, safe pilots. He was dead set against letting them fly through the zep dock. Dick stayed with the group for a while after high school, but finally wandered away from it. One reason was that he simply could not afford the gasoline and maintenance on the plane. Even so, Jimmy had become Dick’s unofficial guide and mentor. They kept in touch even though they were always so far apart in rank. Jimmy was a Captain, which was a big deal in those days. In fact, Jimmy was the only Captain in the Ohio National Guard at the time. Little did they know it at the time, but both Jimmy and Dick would go on to become General officers in the Army.