The sound was unmistakable. Four powerful engines staining against gravity. I ran out the door just in time to see the belly of a B-17 -- right over my back yard. About 10 minutes later, I heard a different sound, but just as loud. This time it was a B-24. The Wings of Freedom tour was in town.
I have often wondered what it must have been like living in World War II America. Much of what we take for granted simply had not yet been invented.
But one invention was beginning to come into its own: the aircraft. Commercial aircraft were still a novelty. But most people had never seen a big airplane.
That all changed with Pearl Harbor. America was in the war. And America knew how to do one thing extremely well: build things. Some of the most amazing products of the 1940s were the series of bombers that were literally stamped out -- in the thousands -- to defend this country's freedom.
What I experienced in my back yard was repeated across the country. People stood in awe as flights of aircraft were delivered from production to staging grounds.
My first experience with a B-17 was in 1958 when I was nine. A local entrepreneurial hero, Art Lacy, had the brilliant idea of mounting a full-sized, four-engined airplane on top of his small Texaco gas station. For my brother and me, climbing into that B-17 was almost like slipping through the wardrobe into Narnia.
The B-17 is still there, but only memories live there: access was blocked off years ago. In fact, the gas station portion of Art's empire is also gone.
But those memories came alive again as the shadow of the B-17 briefly passed over me. Fifty years later and I still stand in awe.
[If we ask real nice, Beth of Minto Dog may tell us some tales of her flight in a B-17 this week.]
But those memories came alive again as the shadow of the B-17 briefly passed over me. Fifty years later and I still stand in awe.
[If we ask real nice, Beth of Minto Dog may tell us some tales of her flight in a B-17 this week.]
