Note: This story first ran as a column Gilpatrick wrote for the Monona Community Herald that published Sept. 12, 2001. Sentimental Journey Brings Past Alive By Kristin Gilpatrick Rarely do we recognize the past when it brushes by us. History is, after all, just something we study. From Sept. 4-10, however, the past flew boldly into the present when the Confederate Air Force's Arizona Wing brought metallic memories from World War II aviationin the form of a B-17 bomber called Sentimental Journeyto the south side of the Dane County Regional Airport. For nearly a week, hundreds walked around, crawled through and just reached out to touch the shiny cold metal of a machine that once filled the world's skies with its wings. Old women ran their hands along the metal seams they had so long ago riveted together. Old men showed grandchildren where they loaded bombs into bays around the clock. Families walked through the cramped places where grandpa manned the gunswhere his best friends fought and diedmore than half a century ago. Some journeyed so far into the past that they were able to relive it. On Saturday, Sept. 8, I took that ride, climbing aboard the B-17 as one of six passengers on a limited number of flights Sentimental Journey flew over Dane County. As an author of two books featuring World War II veterans from Wisconsin, I knew that flying in a B-17 was one of those rare opportunities to take my understanding of what it was to fight that war a step beyond text books and interviews. I shared my bit of nostalgia with my stepfather and Air Force veteran Craig Nichols of Cedarburg, Wis., and one of the veterans featured in my book Eugene Skaar of Cottage Grove, Wis., who served as an Army maintenance man in the Pacific. Skaar wanted to, at last, ride in the plane he'd watched fly overhead so many times. We taxied down the runway Saturday morningmy stepfather riding in the waist near two of the aircraft's five main gunner positions and Gene and I in the radio operator's "room," located between the waist and the cockpitwith veteran CAF pilots Bob Blue and Russ Owens at the controls. The bomber literally rumbled in anticipation of takeoff, shaking us in our seats as the pilots started the four propeller-driven engines. With little more than a blink of an eye I could see a leather-jacket-clad crew of 10 from some 57 years ago in our places, crammed into their positions (some like the tail and ball turret gunners so tightly they couldn't wear parachutes) anticipating what waited for them beyond the runway. Though the bomb bay doors between the radio room and cockpitconnected by a narrow catwalk a foot widewere closed, it was a loose fit, and I could see the concrete beneath the plane just enough to know we were about to take off. I had no other view of the outside from our small compartment, save the overhead windows where the radioman's gun turret sat. Gene and I exchanged "thumbs up," and I grabbed my seat tighter, waiting to feel the pull of my body against it at liftoff like so many 727 flights I'd taken before. For all of the B-17s pre-flight rumbling, we were airborne several minutes before I even realized it. It was a much quieter, smoother ride than I had imagined. But, we weren't there to sit back and enjoy the ride. It was time for history to meet imagination. We made our way into the waist where our flight crew "loadmaster" Gordy Jacobson showed us how to man the big 50-caliber machine guns that once blasted away out large openings in the center of the 74-foot long airplane. As I put my finger on the trigger, I could almost hear the shouts of the crew calling out enemy fighters at 1 o'clock high and feel the cold, rapid breath of a scared but determined gunner taking aim. Gene and I climbed with some difficulty back toward the front of the plane, easing our way thereminus the heavy, bulky flight garb that real B-17 crews had to contend with. As we very carefully maneuvered along the narrow catwalk suspended over the bomb bay, I wanted to reach out and grab hold of the young bombardier who once climbed in our footstepslives in his handsas he armed his bombs. As we came up into the cockpit, I could nearly see the cool hands of a young pilot steadying the controlsand crewof the flak-riddled airplane he was struggling to bring back just one more time. Crawling on our hands and kneesjust inches from scraping our headswe worked our way underneath the cockpit and into the nose of the B-17 where the navigator and bombardier once worked. I was struck by the view they had of the open sky out the large window where the bombardier sat, all but suspended in air. And then, I was struck by how that view must have looked when an enemy fighter filled the window with bullets. It was a view two of the veterans I'd interviewednavigator George "Dutch" Durnford of Monona and bombardier Gerry Sanderson of Elroyhad described so emotionally to me as I wrote their stories in my books. I had tried to truly seethought I had seentheir view from my perspective. I listened to their stories, read about experiences like theirs, looked at war-time pictures but now I knew that I never really understood that view until I'd ridden a few miles in their memories. As I sat in that window and looked at the runway approaching fast beneath my feet, I could see more than where men were and what they did. I could feel Gerry's fear as he tried to concentrate on dropping bombs while flak zinged its way through the thin layer of metal that surrounded him. I could feel Dutch's pain as a piece of that flak killed his plane's bombardier and took off most of his own arm. For just a moment in time, I felt their past brush through me. And, touching that past has changed my present forever. Kristin Gilpatrick Halverson of Monona is the author of The Hero Next Door® and The Hero Next Door® Returns, collections of stories from Wisconsin's World War II veterans. Her third book, Destined to Live: The Amazing Story of World War II Airmen Wild Bill Scanlon, released this summer. This article is copywritten by Kristin Gilpatrick, September 2001. For permission to reprint, republish or copy this article, contact Gilpatrick at kristin@heronextdoor.com |
