For Love of a Flier

Sandra Tucker Bliss wiped tears from her eyes at a memorial service Wednesday as she read aloud a letter from the father she barely knew.

Army Air Force 2nd Lt. Loncie L. Tucker Sr. wrote of his deep devotion to his wife, Rae Haynes Tucker, and 5-year-old daughter, Sandra, in a letter dated October / November 1942.

“May your heart always be happy in knowing that my babies will always be my inspiration,” Tucker wrote while serving at Eagles Field in Dos Palos, near Fresno. “Whatever success I might ever attain, I owe to the sweetest and most devoted wife and baby in all of God’s sweet world. Love you always and always, Your Hubby.”

Seven months later, Tucker was killed when the left engine of his P-38 Lockheed Lightning military fighter plane stalled, causing it to crash and burn in a field at what is now the Peter J. Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic.

He escaped the aircraft, but his parachute failed to open and became tangled around the tail of the plane.

At the time of the accident, Rae Haynes Tucker was three months pregnant with the couple’s second child, Loncie Stroud Tucker, who was born six months after his father’s death.

On Wednesday, Tucker’s children and grandchildren--his wife died in 1975--and friends as well as Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials gathered to dedicate a memorial to the fallen flier on the 56th anniversary of his fatal crash.

The monument--an engraved plaque mounted on a brick base--is set along an access road not far from the actual crash site, which was renamed Tucker Canyon on Wednesday.

The ceremony marked the culmination of a decades-long search for information on Loncie L. Tucker Sr.’s untimely death.

Although the family was immediately notified, details regarding the location, cause and events leading up to the crash remained classified until 1992, when the U.S. Defense Department declassified and released the information.

Bliss and her husband, William, learned through the military reports that the crash site was “located 10 miles north of Newhall Pass on the sheriff’s [Wayside] Honor Rancho property.”

The Blisses, who live in San Diego, were somewhat familiar with the area, but assumed it had been developed and they lost any hope of finding the site.

However, Loncie Stroud Tucker continued to pursue the matter through his sources in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and learned that the property was largely undeveloped.

Meanwhile, Sheriff’s Sgt. Roger Kelley, who searches for military crash sites as a hobby, was also looking for the place where Tucker’s plane went down.

Using landmarks from crash photos, the two separate search teams identified the same location in an unnamed canyon near the beef cattle area at the detention center.

On Wednesday, Loncie Stroud Tucker spoke with pride about the man he never knew, but whose presence he felt all his life through memories shared by relatives, friends and World War II servicemen.

“Daddy was one of a thousand men and women who gave their lives and are still doing it today,” Tucker said, his voice cracking with emotion. “Because they gave their lives, we can be here today.”

As a retired U.S. Border Patrol agent from Alpine, Texas, Tucker said he has a deep appreciation for the United States.

“We live in the greatest country in the world,” he said. “The poor souls I used to catch and send back to their country were coming here for a better life, and we have that better life.”

The children of Lt. Tucker first visited the crash site where their father died on April 12, the 56th anniversary of the day he earned his wings.

“I heard someone say that the character of a country is demonstrated by the people it honors,” Bliss said, fighting back tears as she addressed the crowd. “I am so proud today to be an American citizen.”