Chief Gunner’s Mate Charles T. Thrun was Coast Guard Aviator number 3, and the very first enlisted aviator in the Coast Guard.
On the afternoon of Januay 19, 1935, GMC Thrun was practicing touch and goes in the waters off Base Nine Aviation Station in Cape May, NJ in aircraft number V-136, one of the new Ducks. Also onboard the plane was Machinist’s Mate Kermit H. Parker.
It was 3 p.m. and Thrun had already made three perfect landings. He was starting his run for his fourth take-off, when something happened. The wing pontoon caught on the surface, pulling the wing into the bay’s waters, crumpling it and flipping the plane over. As the Duck turned over on its back, Parker was thrown clear of the plane and into the waters of Cape May Bay. Parker swam back to the surface and was almost immediately plucked from the waters by George Warner, who had witnessed the crash from his clamming boat. Parker immediately dove back into the water to try to rescue Thrun who was still in the overturned aircraft.
From a hanger on the shore nearby, the crash had also been witnessed by Lieutenant Richard Burke, the commanding officer of the base, who had been preparing to conduct some practice flights of his own in one of the other Duck’s.
Burke and another witness, Lieutenant Edmund E. Fahey ran to the station’s crash boat. As the boat sped to the crash site, both men tore off their uniforms. Within five minutes of the crash, the boat was on scene and several men were diving into the icy waters in an effort to release Thrun from the plane. At that point, Burke ordered Parker back aboard the boat for treatment of hypothermia and shock.
Finally one of the men was able to free Thrun from the wreckage. Thrun was then brought aboard the boat where resuscitation efforts were begun.
Meanwhile onshore, another witness, J.J. Spencer, Jr, drove to the nearby city to pickup lung motor from the fire department and take it back to the base along with a doctor. For over seven hours, Dr. Frank Hughes worked to save the life of Thrun. However, at 10:52 that evening, Thrun was pronounced dead. A man many in the Coast Guard aviation community lovingly referred to as “Daddy Thrun” and the Coast Guard’s third pilot had become the service’s first aviation-related death.
The Duck, badly twisted and damaged was towed to the base and placed in a hanger.
In an article reporting his death in the Coast Guard magazine was preceded by this poem:
“So Thrun, old boy, your cruise is done,
No more you’ll chart the blue.
You gambled Fate and Fate has won,
As Fate must always do.
You died while on the wing, old chap,
And though we cannot know,
We think that, after all, mayhap,
You would have wished it so.”
| Name | Rating | Duty Station | Date |
| Thrun, C. T. | GMC | AIRSTA Cap May, NJ | 1/19/1935 |