Edward Lanning Dodder

DODDER, SCHMIDT, TRIPMACHER, BUSSANMAS, HERTZ

Posted By: Phyllis Hazen (email)
Date: 6/12/2021 at 20:55:34

The Muscatine Journal and News Tribune
Monday, 25 October 1943, page 1

Muscatine Rites For Lt. Dodder Air Crash Victim

The body of Second Lieut. Edward Lanning Dodder, 23, of Muscatine, pilot of a B-24 United States Army bomber, who met instant death Saturday afternoon when two heavy army bombers collided near Mountain Home, Idaho, will be brought to Muscatine for funeral rites and burial. The body is expected to reach here late Tuesday or early Wednesday morning and will be taken to the Fairbanks Home for Funerals. The time of services was indefinite today.

All 16 members of the crews of the two big bombers – each having a staff of eight men – were killed, press dispatches from the scene of the accident, five miles southwest of the Mountain Home air base, revealed today.

Reports revealed that one bomber sheared off the wing of the other. The plane which lost the wing flew a short distance before crashing but the other plane, dropping straight to the earth, burrowed deep into the sand of a dry creek bed.

First information of Lieut. Dodder’s death came to Mrs. Albert Tripmacher, close friend of the couple, from the captain of Lieut. Dodder’s unit Saturday night, and later information came from his wife, Mrs. Frances Dodder, who was with him at Mountain Home. Lieut. And Mrs. Dodder and visited at the Tripmacher home recently, leaving here Oct. 14 for Salt Lake City, Utah. A short time later Lieut. Dodder was assigned to Boise, Ida., just a short distance from Mountain Home.

Lieut. Dodder had been in the service since September, 1942, when he enlisted in the army air corps. He received his commission and wings at Blytheville, Ark., on July 28 this year.

Lieut. And Mrs. Dodder had been residents of Muscatine since April 1940 when Lieut. Dodder opened his practice as a doctor of chiropractic, at an Iowa avenue office. Their home was at 211 West Fifth street. Mrs. Dodder is the former Frances Schmidt of Burlington and was employed at Davenport before coming here.

She survives with his mother, Mrs. J. C. Bussanmas and his stepfather, Mr. Bussanmas of Glenwood, Ia., and a sister, Mrs. Eloise Hertz, of Algona, Ia. An uncle and aunt reside at Tipton.