Fighter Pilots and B-17s in World War II
After almost a year as a docent in a B-17 Museum in Tucson, Arizona, I have slowly learned how to spot the genuine article, real heroes.
They hate to talk about it. Yet, like the proverbial moth to the flame, they have to come back, they have to revisit the amulet of the turmoil, the touch-stone of the violence, the bad dreams, the connection to the terror, the violence blood and death.
Yesterday, I met a triple-ace, aviation's short-hand for a guy who shot down 15 enemy planes. He put it to me this way, "I killed fifteen pilots. And I was 18 when I started." At 90, he wobbled into the museum to view the B-17, he of the P-38 Lightning fame, twin tailed hot-shot fighter the Germans were scared of, they dubbed it the twin-forked devil.
He wanted to see the B-17, touch, feel the airplane where " the boys had it really rough." He ran his hands over the skin of the plane, gently, almost as if he caressed it.
" I wouldn't want to have flown this mother, " he said. " I seen to much of these babes blow up in mid-air," Charlie Babbit said. I took him through a tour of the airplane, all twelve machine guns, from the cockpit to the tail gun position.
" Kids, " he said, " we was all just kids. Where ARE those guys?" He was bent over at the waist and hobbled along with the help of family, posed for photos and gave autographs. Not many people ever met a triple ace from WWII.
It was an honor.
The week-end before John Travolta was in the museum across the lot and photographed under a TWA constellation he once owned. I wasn't there. The picture is on the Internet. I understand from the staff that there were a few people there.
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They hate to talk about it. Yet, like the proverbial moth to the flame, they have to come back, they have to revisit the amulet of the turmoil, the touch-stone of the violence, the bad dreams, the connection to the terror, the violence blood and death.
Yesterday, I met a triple-ace, aviation's short-hand for a guy who shot down 15 enemy planes. He put it to me this way, "I killed fifteen pilots. And I was 18 when I started." At 90, he wobbled into the museum to view the B-17, he of the P-38 Lightning fame, twin tailed hot-shot fighter the Germans were scared of, they dubbed it the twin-forked devil.
He wanted to see the B-17, touch, feel the airplane where " the boys had it really rough." He ran his hands over the skin of the plane, gently, almost as if he caressed it.
" I wouldn't want to have flown this mother, " he said. " I seen to much of these babes blow up in mid-air," Charlie Babbit said. I took him through a tour of the airplane, all twelve machine guns, from the cockpit to the tail gun position.
" Kids, " he said, " we was all just kids. Where ARE those guys?" He was bent over at the waist and hobbled along with the help of family, posed for photos and gave autographs. Not many people ever met a triple ace from WWII.
It was an honor.
The week-end before John Travolta was in the museum across the lot and photographed under a TWA constellation he once owned. I wasn't there. The picture is on the Internet. I understand from the staff that there were a few people there.
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