Former Bombardiers Add History To Plane Spectacle

As my friends can attest, I seldom miss an opportunity to mention that my father was a B-24 bombardier.

And I’m showing no signs of outgrowing a nearly lifelong interest in World War II combat aircraft. But it was with a bit of uneasiness that I drove out to Spokane International Airport Saturday morning to check out a pair of restored bombers, a B-24 and a B-17. What if the other onlookers didn’t regard these historic planes with appropriate awe?

I didn’t require that people genuflect. But neither did it seem totally right to make a sideshow out of weapons of horrible destruction that had been flown by men engaged in a life-or-death struggle.

After giving $7 to a bored guy with a fistful of cash who stamped my hand with a smiley-face, I walked past the souvenirs tables and the concession stand. Soon I saw and heard things that made me wince. Little kids inside the B-24 pretending to fire the waist machine guns. People dressed as if they were at a pool party peering down through the open bomb bay, saying “Cool.”

Then there was this one guy wearing flip-flops and shades who appeared to be in his 20s. He stood outside the silver B-24 and looked up at the nose turret. “That’s where I would want to be,” he said to a companion. “Right up front.”

Uh huh, I thought. Of course, there wasn’t a lot of flak or any German fighters to speak of Saturday out at the airport.

But just as I was about to work up some serious disdain, I started noticing something. Scattered among the spectators were these old guys who looked up at the planes and didn’t say much.

Conversations revealed that some of them had been on bomber crews.

I dismounted my high horse. I’d forgotten something important. Those men were the only ones who had a right to object to anybody else being there. And they didn’t seem to mind the company Saturday.

Over next to the B-17, there was a white-haired veteran with his son, who was about my age. They posed for a picture as a grandson aimed the camera. The two men put arms around one another’s shoulders.

A little bit later, I ran into an acquaintance. She introduced me to her father. I shook his hand, saying “My dad was a B-24 bombardier.”

“So was I,” he said in a friendly way.

He told me his first name. But it was impossible to call him anything but “Mr. Reynolds.”

A roaring airliner landed nearby. And I remembered something I wanted to tell my dad.

, DataTimes MEMO: Being There is a weekly feature that looks at gatherings in the Inland Northwest.