Hero's Of Wwii -- Nostalgia For The Old B-17 Bombers

For years during Seafair it was a tradition in my family to gather on my aunt and uncle's back porch to watch the hydroplane races.

But it isn't the races I remember so much as the annual view of a family friend's upthrusted chin as he trained his binoculars on the precision formations of the Blue Angels fighting jets, which were part of the festivities until this year.

We believed that E.E. "Hank" Hendrickson's fascination with the gyrating jets stemmed from his experience flying B-17 bombers in World War II. But we couldn't be sure since no one could hear a word he said over the screaming engines.

So when Hendrickson recently asked me to see the B-17F under restoration at the Boeing Commercial Airplane Co.'s Renton plant, I went only on condition that he share some of his war memories.

For many people, my folks included, World War II was the most vivid time of their lives. They were young, and the all-inclusive focus of the war gave life an edge, an excitement. But Hendrickson, who is more of a Jimmy Stewart than a gung-ho John Wayne, was immersed in dreadful battle in the B-17, a plane so forgiving and stable it was sometimes referred to as "a grandmother's ship."

Outside the hangar, Hendrickson went straight to his scrapbook for an explanation of why it was so beloved, pulling out photos of what was left of his B-17 after it was ripped open by German anti-aircraft flak. It was a common occurrence in his 30 bombing

missions, but this time the plane was judged too damaged to repair after it limped back to England.

"The reason there was so much sentiment," said Hendrickson, who was awarded the Silver Star for that mission, "was that this could get you home when nothing else could."

But even with as much trust as he had in the rugged airframe of the Boeing-built plane, it makes him shudder to think about the trip the late Robert Richardson made in 1989 in the plane now sitting inside the hangar. Richardson, then owner of the plane, flew it to England for the filming of the "Memphis Belle."

Hendrickson also flew a B-17 to England, but it was in 1944 and the plane was so fresh from the Boeing factory "it still had that new-car smell."

By the time Richardson took his B-17F across the Atlantic it had been pounded by a near half-century of civilian use, including corrosion from spilled forest fire-fighting retardant. It was so rare and valuable, however, that it played the role of five planes in the movie.

Richardson, a trustee with the Museum of Flight, died not long after making the return trip from England, and the museum bought the B-17F from his estate in 1990.

`A sad, sad-looking beast'

Hendrickson remembers gazing at the weary plane when it first came home to Boeing Field in 1985, thinking it a "sad, sad-looking beast." Nonetheless, he was so eager for a glimpse he grasped the chainlink fence like a kid stealing a look at a sports hero.

That kind of response is typical, says Pat Coluccio, a principal engineer at Boeing who is coordinating the restoration for the Museum of Flight. There's an amazing nostalgia connected to the plane, he said.

One father and son came and sat in the cockpit until all the father's stories had been told. Another son challenged his 70-year-old father to hoist himself up into the belly of the plane on arm strength alone, World War II style. The father did it, the son could not.

A core of volunteer workers come every day. Other workers drive or fly in for a Saturday just to get their hands on the plane for a day. About half the couple hundred who have taken part are present or former Boeing workers.

As Coluccio leads us on a tour of the restored ball turret and a mock instrument panel that will someday graduate into the real thing, he searches in vain for parts to other projects.

"People hide them so no one else will touch them until they get back," he said.

Parts have come in from around the country, many found in old foot lockers or warehouses, some wrapped in newspaper from 1946. Nearly 7,000 B-17s were made at Boeing - at a rate of 16 every 24 hours by April of 1944. This one rolled out of Plant 2 on Feb. 13, 1944.

Boeing encourages the project, offering space and access to machinery, because it provides a historical bridge to pride in Boeing products. In fact, present workers are so fascinated that the restoration site has been blocked by butcher paper to keep from becoming a distraction.

The memories flood back

For Hank Hendrickson, and others of his era, memories flood back at the sight of the plane.

"You can't believe what it's like to have all 10 guns firing," said Hendrickson, examining the meticulous restoration of the B-17F's weapons.

Here was where the tailgunner crouched, he said, cut off from everything but the brutal cold.

Hendrickson lost two of the five enlisted men on his 10-man crew to injury and two to death. Because of that and other experiences, such as coming back from leave to hear that six crews had been lost the day before, he doesn't think very highly of war. But he remains impressed by individual valor.

In his scrapbook are two letters from his radio operator, written after the man was freed from German prisoner of war camp. The return address, with the name Tech Sgt. William B. Post, was the first indication Hendrickson had that his comrade was still alive.

Reading the letter, it's hard to believe that he survived. Post had the foresight to hook one ring of his chest parachute to his harness, which saved his life when he was knocked unconscious and fell out of the plane. A bone in his right arm was severed by flak and he tore his left Achilles' tendon on the ragged edge of the plane as he fell.

Eventually he was able to open his chute after he regained consciousness and the chute slowed his descent even though it was shredded by shrapnel. He was hit twice by German groundfire before landing in a tree, but the limb broke and he fell 30 feet to the ground. He was immediately attacked by German civilians, who beat him and stripped him of his clothes and gear before German troops arrived.

Post got minimal treatment over the next 10 months.

"They hooked his right arm together but it was two inches shorter than it used to be," Hendrickson said. "The last time I saw him we went bowling and he beat the hell out of me."

Real heroes were mechanics

The planes came back in terrible condition, said Hendrickson, who says the real heroes were the mechanics.

His plane was not salvageable after the mission for which he won the Silver Star. The control cables were blasted at the initial hit and the plane went into a 1,500-foot fall before the smoke cleared and Hendrickson saw that all four engines were still operating.

Hendrickson and his co-pilot alternated hanging onto the control column to keep the plane flying level. They got back in the lead of the formation and bombed the secondary target before barely making it back to England.

Planes that sometime didn't appear salvageable were brought back into action by ground crews that performed miracles.

One time Hendrickson returned to England with the No. 2 and No. 3 engines out, which the ground crew replaced within 36 hours, along with one prop and the whole outer wing.

"They never went to sleep," he said. "They just worked until our plane was ready to go."

The volunteers working on the restoration will have this old warhorse up and flying again, too, or at least that's the plan. The plane will have a limited FAA certificate and may have up-to-date avionics in the cockpit to communicate with air traffic control towers, one of the few concessions to modern life.

There is some debate, however, over how much flying the plane will do. The B-17F will become a centerpiece at the Museum of Flight when it's completed, perhaps as soon as next summer. It's believed to be the only Boeing-built B-17F and one of only 14 B-17s of any kind still flyable, up from six a decade ago.

Many lost to combat, accidents

Of approximately 11,500 B-17s sent to Europe, nearly 8,000 were lost to combat or accidents, according to a Museum of Flight publication. Most of the surviving planes were scrapped or used as cannon fodder after the war.

The B-17s were a disaster as first used by England early in the war, because the escort fighters could not fly far enough to protect them from German Luftwaffe. But as defensive tactics and the range of escort fighters improved, airborne opposition was almost wiped out.

This particular B-17 didn't see much of the war, perhaps because models that soon followed had more weaponry. It has seen plenty of mock action in its lifetime, however, and has added to the idealization of World War II through such films as "Thousand Plane Raid," "Tora! Tora! Tora!" and "Twelve O'Clock High."

Hendrickson, who went back to a reunion for the 92nd Bomb Group in Podington, England, in 1991, concedes there was a romance to those times, but only for the lucky survivors.

"It's one of those adventures that you're glad you went through but that you wouldn't go through again for love nor money."