Wings of Freedom

Mike Strand

It had been 65 years since Alfred Murphy had been inside a B-17, but it wasn't long after the WWII-era heavy bomber was airborne Monday that the 85-year-old had crawled his way through the tight passage under the pilots to the nose turret.

"I wasn't sure I could do it either," Murphy said once the plane was on the ground.

"I'm still in pretty good health, cancer a couple of times, and a stroke, but I just didn't feel old right then," Murphy said.

Murphy, of Wichita, along with fellow B-17 veterans Bob Kopke, of Great Bend, and Dale Grothusen, of Ellsworth, were on the first flight of the Wings of Freedom tour's stop in Salina.

While waiting for their flight in a WWII   B-17 bomber, Alfred Murphy and Dale Grothusen swap war stories.

Wings of Freedom is a project of the Massachusetts-based Collings Foundation, which works to teach people about American history through direct participation.

The current national tour includes a B-17, a B-24 and a P-51 Mustang fighter; today and Wednesday, people may take a half-hour flight on one of the bombers for $425, and Mustang flights are available for $2,200 for a half-hour.

But that first flight Monday was reserved for the three Flying Fortress veterans.

While waiting for the aircraft to arrive, Murphy and Grothusen talked about their experiences flying in World War II.

"There were hundreds of aircraft in the sky, it was just full of them," said the 91-year-old Grothusen, who'd been a flight engineer.

He described his job as "looking over the pilot's shoulder, and making sure he didn't break my airplane -- there's a lot more than just handling the handles."

Dale Grothusen bends around part of a gun turret to look over B-17 pilot Mac MacCuley's shoulder.

And, he noted, "there were lots of guys on the ground who helped us get up there."

On bombing missions over Germany, he said, the bomber and its 10-man crew flew several miles up, where it was usually 30 to 40 below zero.

"Your breath would freeze on the front of your shirt," he said. "When you came down, it all melted."

He recalled that when he was flying in Italy, the ground crews would sneak a 50-gallon drum of water onboard, retrieving the ice at the end of the mission.

And though rugged, the aircraft often sustained "battle damage you had to learn to work around."

He recalled one mission, on which a hole was shot in the hydraulic line to the rear landing gear brake, and the brake started leaking fluid.

"I disconnected the pump to save the oil until we needed it," he said, and set to work figuring out a patch, deciding friction tape reinforced with wire might hold pressure long enough.

"The co-pilot came up and told me he'd fixed it," Grothusen said.

When the plane landed, the brakes went out, and the bomber went off the end of the runway; Grothusen quickly figured out he should have been looking over the co-pilot's shoulder, too.

"He'd just wrapped a rag around the line," he said.

Murphy completed 35 missions as a pilot, including one in which he had to bail out over Yugoslavia, and was listed as missing in action for 10 days.

"They're not good memories, but it was years ago," he said. "It doesn't bother me any more. You'd see all those bursts of flak, and it seemed like you'd never be able to get through it. You didn't know if your life is going to end the next minute or if the good Lord is going to give you another day."

Still, he said, he was looking forward to climbing back into a B-17: "This is THE flight, not just a flight."

"I flew one of those," Murphy said, laughing, as he walked around the bomber before climbing in.

Grothusen pointed to the gun turret on the bottom of the bomber.

"It wasn't very comfortable unless you were about half-size," Grothusen said. "And your 'chute wouldn't fit, so if you had to bail, you had to climb out and find it quick -- if it was still there."

Once the bomber became airborne, Murphy quickly dove into the nose turret, while Grothusen took up his old position behind the pilot.

A view out the right-hand side of the four-engine B-17 flying over the Salina area.

There wasn't really room to stand up straight -- and no place to sit -- in the compartment that was mostly taken up by the gun turret on top of the fuselage.

"There's not a lot of room in here, and all kinds of things to hit your head on, and my knees don't work like they did then" he said, beaming as he held on to the back of the pilot seat and watched.

"I wasn't up here to look at the landscape -- I know what that looks like," he said. "I wanted to see this again."

Visitors can find out more by visiting the Collings Foundation website at www.collingsfoundation.org.