World War II fly-boys return to skies in original bomber

Seventy-two years after witnessing his buddies crash and die the day World War II ended, Buhl Palmer climbs into the only B-24 bomber still flying and squints into wispy white clouds as the California coast shrinks below.

Now, 94 years old, Palmer was a nose gunner on a “Liberator,” as the long-distance bombers were called. He solemnly looks around, intimately familiar with the .50 caliber machine guns, the cables, the bomb bays that carried up to 8,000 pounds of horror.

Palmer and two other World War II vets settle on narrow strips of metal as if they are home — and in some ways they are.

But for someone like me used to such amenities as, say, windows, the plane feels as raw as its original mission. We must carefully avoid brushing against a web of greasy cables that control wing flaps. Bare metal is the decor. Cold wind blasts through 3-foot-by-4-foot openings so swiveling guns can shoot every which-way.

As we taxi down the runway at John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, four engines roar louder than a Guns ‘N Roses concert. The plane lifts, ground disappears. And below my feet in parts of the belly there is nothing but a wide open void.

For several minutes, I scream something akin to, “Holy smoke.”
Palmer just smiles and gingerly steps down into the belly. Hunching over, he navigates a narrow catwalk, squeezes between metal struts.

A nose gunner, this warrior heads for a small glass turret where he once witnessed death from above, from below — and from within.

JUNGLE CRASH

Based in Massachusetts, the Collings Foundation is a nonprofit that puts on living history events. The B-24 and several other World War II planes including a B-17 are in the midst of a national tour fittingly called “Wings of Freedom.” The next stop is Monday and Tuesday in Paso Robles.

To defray expenses, a 30-minute flight can cost as much as $450. Or it can cost nothing.

Les Gray lives in Hemet and is 100 years old. The last time he saw his brother, Roger, was three-quarters of a century ago when Roger enlisted in the Army Air Corps — the precursor to the modern Air Force. Roger Gray’s B-25 disappeared smoking and spiraling into the jungles of New Guinea.

To honor her great uncle, Sharon Mitchell scraped enough money together so she could take her grandfather on a plane that was nearly identical to the one his brother had perished on.

But when the Collings Foundation learned about the circumstances, the nonprofit offered to fly granddaughter and grandfather for free.

Mitchell, who lives in Camarillo and has a 19-year-old son in the Air Force, reports the flight helped bring her grandfather some closure. “We see these things in the history books,” she explains. “These men lived them.”

Similarly, Mark Herthel’s father-in-law, Rupert “Rupe” Ford, flew B-24s during World War II. Living in Burbank and now deceased, Ford loved watching vintage planes at the local airport. Along the way, Herthel and his wife started sponsoring rides on Collings Foundation planes.

“The planes are important,” says Herthel, who lives in Sun Valley. “But what’s really important is that they signify the men and women who were involved in World War II and the planes keep their memory alive.”

Demetrius Harakis,  born two decades after World War II ended, is another sponsor.

The son of a Greek Orthodox priest, Harakis struck out on his own when he was a teenager. Today, he owns two 1950-style diners, one in Orange the other in Westminster.

Inside the Victory Diner in Orange, there’s a photo of his namesake uncle, Demetrius Solivcas, wearing a Navy uniform. Next to the photo, there’s a faded letter signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt memorializing Solivcas, killed less than six months before the war ended when a Japanese plane bombed the USS Franklin.

“Where I grew up,” Harakis shares, “those World War II guys were the big heroes.”

For five years, Harakis has sponsored veterans to fly on the old planes to honor what it means to serve in a war that could have ended very differently.

“These are the kind of guys,” the restaurateur allows, “that I want to have a beer and a pizza with.”

GETTING SHOT DOWN

I crawl on my hands and knees into the nose gunner turret. The cubbyhole is confining, yet liberating. When no one’s trying to kill you, being in a glass bubble in a blue void feels like floating in the sky.

But the experience is far different for Dan Oldewage, 92 years old and back in a vibrating Liberator that transports him to another era.

Oldewage was barely out of high school when he enlisted in the Army Air Corps. He wasn’t old enough to drink when he became a nose gunner on a B-24.

On Aug. 9, 1945, Oldewage was on a mission flying at 18,000 feet when, suddenly, the crew saw a bomb cloud grow to unbelievable proportions.
“We looked straight up,” Oldewage recalls. “It must have reached 50,000 feet.”

The plume was from the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki.

Oldewage’s next tour of duty was Korea where he served as a B-29 tail gunner. But MiGs shot down his plane near the Chinese-North Korean border. He spent two-and-a-half years in a POW concentration camp. Five-foot-10, he weighed 80 pounds when he was freed.

But people like Oldewage are survivors. “My wife,” he proudly points out, “was from a pioneer family.” Today, the veteran has three children, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Harry “Pat” Hofferbert is another tough aviator. He enlisted in 1942 and started flight school in 1943. But he broke an eardrum during a practice dive. The injury meant he could only serve on transport planes, so that is exactly what he did during the war and he never stopped serving.

Hofferbert was a Santa Ana school principal from 1964 to 1979, has been a Kiwanian for more than a half-century and taught in China.

At 93, Hofferbert’s knees aren’t quite what they were when he served in the Army Air Corps. Still, he hauls himself up and into the B-24, painted “Witchcraft” on the nose. And he extricates himself when we land.

As Palmer and I walk across the tarmac at John Wayne Airport, the former gunner mentions he saw combat in Guam, Iwo Jima. I ask if the flight brought back difficult memories.

Palmer, who lives in Tustin, stops, turns, shakes his head. He thinks of all the young men who never came home.

He explains softly. “I have those memories anyway.”