COSTA MESA : Air Heroes of Another Era Reunite

The crew of the Memphis Belle gained fame for successfully completing 25 missions over Europe during World War II, but what one general dubbed their “26th mission” has never ended.

Upon their return to America, they were launched into a publicity tour for a 1944 color documentary about their exploits, flying their B-17 “Flying Fortress” around the country to factories to thank the bomber’s builders for doing such a good job.

“We weren’t heroes, just a group of 10 guys doing our job,” said Robert K. Morgan of Asheville, N.C., a captain and the Belle’s pilot. “When you’re flying in a tight formation, you can’t do anything different from anyone else. We had people shot down on the left of us and on the right of us. We were just very fortunate.”

But their fame has endured, and with the release in October of the new film, “Memphis Belle,” loosely based on the documentary, the eight surviving crew members, now in their 70s, were reunited for more public appearances.

The unveiling of a painting of the Belle by aviation artist Robert Taylor brought them to Orange County Friday and today for what they said will probably be their last reunion, at least for a while. At the Virginia Bader Fine Arts gallery in Costa Mesa, they took off on a daunting mission: to sign 1,250 prints of the painting, which Bader says will take them two days.

The Persian Gulf war, along with the movie, has sharpened the crew’s already-vivid memories of the war. “Seeing the movie brought it all back,” said James A. Verinis of Woodbridge, Conn., the Belle’s co-pilot. “It’s hard to envision that you were really there and it really happened to you. . . . World War II wasn’t just a skirmish.”

The bombing raids on Iraq are a far cry from the Memphis Belle’s missions. “Everything’s so computerized now; it’s like taking a picture with a camera,” said Casmir Nastal of Apache Junction, Ariz., who was one of the Belle’s waist gunners and later went on to fly 30 more missions on other aircraft. “And they have no competition. We were always met by German fighters and antiaircraft fire.”

But just like the World War II pilots, those flying today will get “battle-wise in a hurry,” said Bill Winchell of Barrington, Ill., the Belle’s other waist gunner. “I sure feel for those guys--they have a job to do just like we did.”

The Memphis Belle was one of 10,000 B-17 bombers, known as “Flying Fortresses” because of their ability to take heavy hits and still bring their crews back despite 3-1 odds against the planes’ safe return. The four-propeller, 75-foot-long, 30-ton aircraft were the workhorses of World War II. The original plane is now in Memphis, Tenn.

Winchell said the “brotherhood” that developed among the crew “had a lot to do with us all getting through.” After his first raid, he recalled, he became “fatalistic” about his chances of survival. “I had a chance to take courses at Cambridge but passed it up because I didn’t think I was going to last the semester.”

What kept Winchell going was the bond among the crew members. “These guys were going, so I had to go, too,” he said. He would tell himself: “OK, I’m going to get it, but not today.”

They remember moments of utter terror, like the time a “surprise” mission turned out to be not a surprise to the enemy after all, or the time that the radioman didn’t hear an order to turn back from a bombing mission.

And they recall the good times, too, like going into London after payday and their postwar barnstorming tour. “I had permission to buzz any place I wanted to,” Morgan said. “We really had fun.”