Descendants Corner

Winter, 2003-2004

Blessed New Year 2004……what an exciting time as we see NASA’s Mars rover land on our neighboring planet!! We can actually view the terrain! It makes you wonder what this new space exploration will reveal. This is indeed a major “shot in the arm” for NASA!! The capture of Hussein and the slowing of the insurgency in Iraq are all welcome points of news for the entire world.

I hope you don’t mind that I have elected to mention my father in the Descendant’s Corner this issue. Our rural electric power company here in Ohio recently honored “favorite Buckeyes” as part of their Ohio Bicentennial celebration. My dad, Henry ‘Hank’ Balmut, was one of the Ohioans selected for this honor. As we think of the hard work and scientific know-how necessary to place that Mars rover on our neighboring planet, it makes me think of my Dad and the part he played in the exploration of space. Please allow me to quote from the recent article in Pioneer Rural Electric’s Country Living magazine for November, 2003. Can you guess who wrote the nominating letter?

“My father, Henry ‘Hank’ Balmut, played a major part in the exploration of space. After serving in World War II with the Army Air Corp, 390th Bomb Group (H), he became an employee of the Directorate of Flight and All Weather Testing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton when the race-for-space flight program first began. He was appointed to serve as Crew Chief of the Weightless Wonder, an extensively modified Boeing KC-135, which was used as a Zero G test bed for NASA, the Air Force, the Navy and numerous scientists and laboratories. By flying parabolic arcs, approximately 25 seconds of zero gravity were experienced at the top of the parabola.

All of the world’s first seven astronauts – Gordon Cooper, Gus Grissom, Zeke Slayton, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Walter Schirra and Alan Shepard – trained in my father’s plane. He also worked on Project’s Mercury, Apollo, Gemini, Samos Centaur and the Able V Lunar Probe. Because of my father’s ability to solve the problem of air cycle machine oil loss during parabolic flight with a system that was superior to Boeing’s more complicated design, he isolated the cause of pressurization failures that occur during weightless flight. My father was extended an honorary membership in the Society of Interplanetary Free Floaters due to his participation in the act of weightless flying and defying the irrevocable Law of Gravity. He is my hero – and one of my favorite Buckeyes.”

When the names of the selected few were announced it was exciting and pleasurable to read those words. He was a hero ….just as all of you are heroes…those of you who served in the 390th! Those are not idle words written to fill a page…they are heart-felt and sent with great love. My mother, Margery Balmut and my sister, DiAnne Doss, and I and our children Joseph and Peter Doss, Anthony and Vincent Ward, and Steve and Katherine Ward Setty, and their children Anders and Aislen are all hoping to attend the museum reunion this spring. We just wish to stand in silence, look at those amazing B-17’s, and honor the men and women who made the 390th what it was and is yet today.

My nephew, Joe Doss, wrote the following words to his Grandpa Hank. I include it in honor of all of you…

“I just wanted to express my thanks, Grandpa. I am grateful to see some of the documents you acquired during your service in the Air Corp. One day last summer Peter and I were playing golf at the Urbana Country Club. We came up on the seventh green facing due north and heard a rumbling quite unfamiliar…….this sound was quite distinct. Into our field of view came the unmistakable profile of a B-17 bomber at no more than 5,000 feet AGL. We were simply awestruck. I can’t express the pride we feel toward your service during the Second World War. Those radial engines shook the ground on which we stood. Your sacrifice affords us the freedom we enjoy today.”

The Descendants salute you all ……it will NEVER be forgotten!!