931st Commander presents flag to family of Wichita Silver Star recipient

by Master Sgt. Brannen Parrish
931st Air Refueling Group Public Affairs

3/11/2014 - MCCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, Kan. -- The 931st Air Refueling Group commander presented a flag to the sister of a deceased World War II Silver Star recipient at the Joseph H. Herndon II Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion post in Derby, March 10.

The flag was flown over McConnell last winter and presented to Ginny Webb of Wichita. Webb was 16 when her brother, Ravon Thomas, was drafted into the Army. Thomas, who was attending Friends University, dutifully left to fight in World War II.  Thomas passed away last August.

Thomas was cited for bravery during Operation Dragoon. His squad leader was tasked with throwing a satchel charge into a German pillbox along the Siegfried Line but was unable to complete the mission due to injury. Thomas volunteered to throw the charge into the pillbox.

The explosion destroyed the fortification, killing three German soldiers and preventing the deaths of hundreds of Allied soldiers on their march east to Germany.

"Ginny, we're all here for you today," said  Col. Mark S. Larson, before he presented the flag. "We're here to honor your brother's memory and to honor the sacrifices you and your family made."

Thomas spoke rarely of his service in World War II. A soldier in the 45th Infantry Division, he witnessed the depths to which humans can sink when they liberated the concentration camp at Dachau.

"He talked about liberating Dachau once, and I could see how deeply it affected him and I could understand why it was probably better for him not to talk about it," said Webb.

But there were other things about Thomas' service his family never knew until the last couple of years of his life. After he passed away last August they discovered he was a recipient of the Silver Star.

"In his last few years some of the stories started to come out," said Barbara Rollings, Webb's daughter. "I asked him what he was thinking when he charged that pillbox and he said, 'I just did what I thought anyone else would do.'"

Still, Thomas didn't speak of the decorations he received for his heroic service.

"I never knew about all of the decorations until after he died. He never spoke about it," said Webb.

According to the Thomas Family, he moved to California after the war, attained an English degree at Pomona, and went to work as a teacher, and later the Superintendent of Secondary Education for Pomona, Calif.

He spent five years in retirement travelling to Mexico to teach English but returned to Wichita in the early 1980s and moved into what his family called "the bunkhouse" on the property of the family's former dairy.

"He said Wichita was home," said Rollings. "That's why he came back."