Wilbur Moline

Wilbur Fred Arnold Moline, age 94, LCDR retired U.S. Navy, of Sioux Falls, SD and formerly of Cannon Falls, MN passed away on Friday morning, April 29, 2011 at the Sanford Hospice in Sioux Falls. He is survived by his sister-in-law, Shirley Moline of Sioux Falls, SD; and nephews, Richard (Darlene) Moline of Canyon Lake, CA and Brent (Anita) Moline of Rapid City, SD and their families. He was preceded in death by his younger brother, Stanley B. Moline on November 30, 2009. A funeral service will be held on Monday, May 9, 2011 at 11:00 a.m., with visitation from 10-11 a.m., at Lundberg Funeral Home in Cannon Falls, with Dr. Randy Taber, Retired Lt. Colonel, US Air Force officiating. Burial with military honors will follow at the Cannon Falls Cemetery. Lunch and fellowship will follow at the VFW basement. When Wilbur Moline was born April 9th, 1917 in St. Paul, the nurse at Bethesda Hospital said, "Here is another soldier for Uncle Sam." Little did she know how prophetic her words would be. In 1918 Wilbur moved with his family to a farm south of Cannon Falls where he grew up. He attended Cannon Falls High School for one year. In 1934 he tried to enlist in the military, but failed the physical due to a hernia. He spent the next few years doing farm work and making twenty cents per hour on a threshing crew. The low pay and scarcity of work served to encourage Wilbur to get the hernia surgically repaired so he could again attempt to enlist. In 1938 he was accepted and was sent to Great Lakes Naval Base in Illinois, for basic training as a sailor. After basic training Wilbur was assigned to the battleship U.S.S. California and was sent to the Pacific on March 4, 1938. While he was a sailor on the California he was asked if he wanted to be a pilot and responded, "NO", thinking that his single year of high school was not enough education to be a pilot. The commanding officer thought otherwise and decided Wilbur should go to flight school. He was selected out of 1300 men on the ship for that assignment. Wilbur ended up being one of the 33 enlisted men in a class of 100 in flight school. After graduating from Navy flight school in Pensacola, Florida on October 27, 1941, he was designated a Naval Aviation Pilot with the rating of Aviation Machinist Mate Second Class. His first assignment as a pilot was to Pearl Harbor. He arrived there on Christmas Eve of 1941 and made his first flight, a 14 hour dawn to dusk flight, on December 27. He regularly flew with a patrol squadron. Shortly after that, the Navy was looking for a pilot for a new naval air station on the island of Maui, and Wilbur was selected for that duty. He was the only enlisted man who was a pilot there, and the other two pilots were officers, - the commanding officer and executive officer of the air station. When he arrived, no aircraft had yet been assigned to the air station. After some weeks, aircraft began to arrive, and Wilbur began flying amphibious planes, dive bombers and transport aircraft. Wilbur said some people were surprised to find a pilot flying in an enlisted man's white sailor hat and dungarees. Some of his duties on Maui included standing watch in the control tower, flying mail, cargo and movies from Pearl Harbor to Maui, flying patrols looking for subs and flying planes with target planes attached behind them so Marines could practice with their machine guns. On one such flight Wilbur was towing a target plane at the end of an 800 foot cable and the Marines shot off the cable only 75 feet from the tail of the plane! Wilbur said," To miss the target by nearly 8000 feet, one wonders if they were shooting at my plane instead of the target!" One of Wilbur's memorable assignments was taking four chaplains to the leper colony on the island of Molokai. They landed on the highest elevation on the island and had to ride donkeys down a steep road to the colony. Wilbur estimated it was a two to three thousand foot drop in elevation. They were able to tour the leper colony but weren't allowed to take pictures during their one day stay. Although Wilbur arrived in Maui as an enlisted man with a second -class rating, he quickly worked his way up to the rank of Chief and in 1943 was commissioned as an officer with the rank of 2nd Lieutenant Junior Grade. He said on the first days as an officer he was afraid to eat with the other officers. After that, it was an easy "transition" to his new rank. Wilbur said of his time in the Hawaiian Islands, "I'd like to do it all over again." He felt duty there was a stroke of good "luck" because many of his classmates and acquaintances were killed in action in the South Pacific. After three years in Maui, Wilbur left in January of 1945. He went on to become a career officer in the Navy and had assignments as a pilot flying many types of aircraft. He was stationed in Maryland, Virginia, Maine, Florida, Texas, California and Morocco. He flew to many destinations in the United States, Europe, Africa and Bermuda. In July of 1949 he was stationed in Frankfort, Germany with the Navy VR-8 Squadron on the Berlin Airlift. He made 118 round trips from Frankfurt to Berlin between March 12, 1949 and August 10, 1949 in a DC 4 R-5 and D3 Navy Aircraft. After twenty seven years of service, Wilbur retired from the Navy on June 1, 1958 with over 7, 704 hours of flying time in 26 different aircraft. He then flew for Mid Eastern Airlines before it went out of business. He returned to Cannon Falls and worked the family farm until the 1960's. He moved to Sioux Falls, South Dakota in 1997.

Funeral Home: Lundberg Funeral Home 5839 Hwy 19 Blvd Cannon Falls, MN US 55009

---

Previous Events

Visitation
Monday, May 9, 2011
Service
Monday, May 9, 2011
Graveside Service
Monday, May 9, 2011

---