Flying Fortress Fuels Wartime Memories

A good part of David Fish’s adult life has been spent honoring his father, a decorated World War II pilot.

The 56-year-old Camarillo resident has pictures, log books and other mementos from his dad’s days leading bombing raids in the South Pacific.

Fish has lots of memorabilia but no memories--he was 9 months old on May 30, 1945, the day his dad and six other crew members died in the crash of a B-25 bomber in the Philippines.

On Wednesday, Fish and dozens of others gathered at the Camarillo Airport to tour the gleaming B-17 Flying Fortress that will remain on display until Monday.

Officials with the Arizona Wing of the Confederate Air Force, which owns the silver flying gunship, stood by answering questions from visitors while flight mechanics did routine maintenance on the plane’s four engines. The nonprofit vintage plane club also is offering flights on the plane.

It was not important to Fish on Wednesday that the B-17 has four engines, compared with the two on the doomed B-25 his dad flew on the day he died, or that the B-17 was much larger than the B-25.

Being near the World War II-era bomber, Fish said, meant getting close to the father he only heard about and saw in faded, dogeared photographs.

“They are keeping the memories alive,” Fish said as he stood in the bomb compartment of the plane. “My father served our country well, but when I was growing up I would stop and say, ‘If he had lived, things would be different.’ I lost my future, and life took a detour.”

Members of the flying group say the plane draws the curious, history buffs and those whose lives are forever scarred by events that occurred more than five decades ago.

“It’s like a pull to people,” said Peggy Miller, a Santa Paula resident and a member of the Confederate Air Force. “A lot of wives never saw the plane that their husbands went off and flew. There are some stories that just give me chills.”

Even half a century later, it can be too much for some visitors to take, said Larry Perkins, a commercial pilot who flew the plane from Arizona.

“I’ve seen people who couldn’t even get in because they knew someone who was killed on one,” said Perkins, a Phoenix-based pilot for America West who serves as the pilot for the B-17 flying tours.

The plane on display Wednesday never took enemy fire or dropped a bomb during World War II. It was commissioned in late 1945, after the war was over, officials said.

At least 12,000 of the planes were built for the war. Four thousand of those were shot down or crashed, said Dave Comer, the on-site historian for the Confederate Air Force. Comer said 50 remain today, 14 of which are still flying.

Although not an agile plane, the B-17 could be deadly, Perkins said, adding that the plane is also the surprising answer to a World War II trivia question: Which plane shot down more enemy aircraft than any other during the war?

“It was a sitting duck,” Perkins said. “But when a fighter approached it, it was like coming up on a porcupine.”

FYI

The B-17 Flying Fortress will be on display at Camarillo Airport from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily through Monday. Ground tours are $4; flights are $350.