Remember the sound of thunder—that
ripping, booming, crash that makes your
bedroom window rattle? It’s usually pre-
ceded by a flash of lightning that dances
across the sky. Have you ever wondered
whatathunderstormlookedlikeupclose?
Really close? Can you imagine meeting a
thunderstorm where it lives—in the clouds?
One man did. And he lived to tell about it.
Lieutenant Colonel William Rankin is
called “the man who rode the thunder.” He
wasaU.S.MarineCorpspilotwhoserved
inWorldWarIIandinKorea.
On July 26, 1959, while on a training
flight over Norfolk, Virginia, something went
terribly wrong with Rankin’s jet fighter. Its
single engine shuddered, then stopped in
midair. Warning lights flashed. The experi-
enced pilot knew he needed to get out of the
plane—fast.Hepulledtheejectlever.Thetop
ofhisairplanerippedaway,andhisseatshot
into the sky. He said the jolt felt like “a huge
bull elephant had kicked me in the rear.”
Heclearedhisairplane,butRankin
wasnearlyninemileshigh.Outsidethe
cockpit, the temperature was minus 70°F,
so cold that Rankin’s skin hurt. His abdo-
men swelled hugely from the sudden change
in air pressure. Blood spilled from his eyes,
ears, nose, and mouth. Ejecting at 500 miles
perhourhadsentRankin“tumbling,spin-
ning, and cartwheeling through space.”CRAAACKKKKK! Hewaswhirlingsofastthathecouldnot
pull his arms in to his body even to reach
hisparachutecord.Hisjethadbeenflying
above a thunderstorm at 47,000 feet. But his
parachute wouldn’t open automatically above
10,000 feet. Rankin was in for a wild ride!
He fell seven miles in about seven or
eight minutes, hurtling toward the earth at
100milesperhour.Ashedescendedintothe
thunderstorm, hailstones pounded his hel-
met like “it was raining baseballs.” Rankin
knewhewouldfreezetodeathorrunout
of emergency oxygen if his chute opened
too soon. But his training told him he was
nearing 10,000 feet. He reached for his
parachute cord. But before he could pull it,
his body jerked. The parachute had opened!
“Overjoyed to be alive and going down safely
...Ithoughttheordealhadended.Butit
hadn’t.”
Rankin felt his body lift as he went
throughadarkcloud.Thenfall.Thenlift
again.Hewascaughtintheaircurrents.
Then,C-R-A-A-A-C-K-K-K-K-K!Thunder
exploded all around him. A blinding flash of
lightburnedhiseyes.Anotherboomshook
his body and made his teeth vibrate. “I didn’t
hear the thunder,” he later said, “I felt it.”
Lightningslashedtheskyallaround
Rankin. Sometimes it came very close—
huge, bluish sheets, several feet thick, that
seemed to cut through him “like the blades
of a scissor.” Rankin shut his eyes. But heby Roxanne Troup
Illustrated by Ned Gannon
26 text © 2019 by Roxanne Troup, art © 2019 by Ned Gannon