Speaking to the Future:
Thomas Fallbach
Thomas Fallbach, born January 2, 1927 in Chicago, Illinois, attended St. Paul's Lutheran School, which was located in a farm community on the outskirts of Chicago. During high school he worked in a dog kennel where he learned to train Doberman Pinscher dogs to be attack dogs and he acted as the enemy during dog show exhibitions at fairs. At that time he also played the trombone and performed in local shows and on the WLS National Barn Dance, a radio program. After graduation, he worked for Douglas Aircraft as a riveter assistant before he joined the U. S. Coast Guard where he became a diver. His final tour of duty was as the radio operator aboard the Nantucket, the lightship anchored eighty miles off Nantucket Island. After he got out of the service, he owned and operated a gas station in Chicago and then worked for a Chicago hardware supply company before he started his own company. Eventually he transferred to the Denver area, where he and his family lived for a while before moving to Sedalia in Douglas County. Fallbach served as a volunteer fireman for the West Douglas County Fire Department for twenty years.
Mr. Fallbach did a second interview for the Veterans History Project. After graduating from Taft High School, he worked for Douglas Aircraft as a riveter assistant helping to build C-54 Skymaster transport aircraft. He joined the U. S. Coast Guard in 1944. At the U.S. Coast Guard Manhattan Beach Training Center ex-boxer Jack Dempsey was the Commander of boxing and physical fitness. Training under this American icon left a lasting impression on the young Fallbach. He highlights his assignments after basic training, including diving in the search of torpedoes in Chesapeake Bay, working on a ship that refueled aircraft carriers at sea, and his assignments as a member of the crew on the Nantucket Lightship, anchored off the coast of Nantucket Island. He reserved a honorable discharge from the U. S. Coast guard in 1946.