September 1, 2014 at 12:00 p.m.
World War II-era bomber makes rare Northwoods stop
World War II-era bomber makes rare Northwoods stop
That was the day the young man from Rhinelander went for his first ride of any sort in any type of aircraft.
On this day, it would be no ordinary aircraft.
"Oh wow, that was fantastic!" Shepherd said after the ride.
Shepard, 22, and his dad, Steve, had just completed their 30-minute flight aboard "Show Me!" a World War II-era North American B-25J Mitchell medium bomber belonging to the Missouri wing of the Commemorative Air Force.
The plane made a day-long stop at the Eagle River Union Airport Aug. 25.
Several people had seen an article about the stop the week before in the Lakeland Times and the same article in the Northwoods River News and were at the airport that morning to see the B-25 come in.
The Shepards were among them.
"I loved when the pilot banked the whole plane," Morgan Shepard said. "It was awesome."
"You should have seen the grin on his face," Steve Shepard said. "I couldn't bring myself to go into the nose like I wanted to. I planned on doing it when I first got on but once we got airborne, I decided to stay where I was."
Where he was was behind the pilot, Dave Thompsen.
The way Steve Shepard saw it, this was going to be a once in a lifetime opportunity for a father-son flight.
"When I saw it in the paper, I thought 'That's a good father-son thing,'" he said. "He and I have never been to a baseball game. That's the usual father-son thing. I should have taken him to Milwaukee years ago and taken him to a baseball game. I'm not big on baseball and neither is he, really. So, we never did that."
After seeing the article in the paper about the CAF's B-25 being in the area, he made a decision.
"He's never been on a plane," Steve Shepard said of his son. "It's a once in a lifetime chance to be on a bomber like this. These [B-25s] are rare and few and far between."
Shepard paid the $395 each to ride "Show Me!" with his son.
"It would be an experience for me, a great experience for him and a great experience for the two of us to share," he said.
'I thought it was wonderful'
Among the spectators allowed to walk to the edge of the tarmac and watch "Show Me!" take off with that first load of passengers were Barbara and Carl Bennets of Arbor Vitae.
Barbara Bennets said she wanted Carl, who was in the Army from 1945 to 1947 and based at Los Alamos, N.M., to ride the B-25.
He said he wanted to be a paratrooper and was at Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo., for about a week before shipping out for Los Alamos.
Carl ended up working with the scientists who developed "Fat Man" and "Little Boy," the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in August 1945.
As for the B-25's stop in Eagle River, Bennets wasn't successful in getting Carl to go on a flight, but she was glad they came to see the World War II plane.
"It was wonderful," she said. "I wouldn't have missed it for the world. That's important. I mean, that's history."
She then got a little emotional.
"It makes you cry," she said.
The stop that almost wasn't
The stop in Eagle River almost didn't happen.
The Mitchell and its crew had been in Duluth over the weekend for the Duluth Air and Aviation Expo.
However, the weather didn't cooperate the whole time they were there.
"Show Me!" was on static display for the duration.
Plane and crew were supposed to arrive in Eagle River Sunday between 7 and 8 p.m.
The plan was for the crew to stay at a house on Indian Lake that Thompsen's parents have owned for nearly 25 years.
That didn't happen because of the weather and even into early the next morning, the day they were supposed to be in Eagle River, Thompsen, who flies Boeing 777s for United Airlines as his "civilian" job, said it wasn't a sure thing.
"You know, the weather and storms moved off and the sun came out," he said. "We're really happy everyone came out to the airport."
Some history of 'Show Me!'
Bob Moore is a recently retired drywall salesman who has been with the CAF's Missouri Wing for a couple of decades.
Aside from being a sort of historian for the wing, he handles all of the paperwork required when people like Morgan and Steve Shepard want to go for a ride on "Show Me!"
Moore said the B-25 was built in 1944 at North American's "Bomber Plant" in Fairfax, Kan., near Kansas City.
"It was built by women," he said. "It was a trainer. It never went overseas. Didn't do any of that."
Sometime after its military career was over in the 1950s or 1960s, the B-25 that today is known as "Show Me!" was auctioned off by the government and purchased by a doctor.
Moore said the doctor ultimately got cancer and advertised the plane. People offered him $350,000 for it in the early 1980s.
"We called him," said Moore. "We were wanting to get into the bigger planes."
However, the price tag was a little steep.
Eventually, with the help of entertainer Tennessee Ernie Ford, an Army Air Force veteran of World War II who served on Boeing B-29 Superfortresses in the Pacific and was himself a member of the CAF, the wing obtained "Show Me!" in 1984.
Interaction with veterans
As one could imagine, there is a lot of interaction with veterans at events "Show Me!" and the other two planes the Missouri Wing of the CAF are taken to throughout the year.
"Every time we talk to veterans, we hear some stories," Moore, who is not a veteran, said. "I tell them 'I am so honored to be in your presence. I really am.'"
He said he'll never forget what one veteran told him at one of their stops.
"He said 'You know what our main job was over there, was don't you?' I said 'What's that?" and he said 'To get our (backside) home in one piece!'"
Moore said the group is involved in several events for veterans, including the Honor Flights to Washington, D.C.
"Operation Homefront, where the guys come back and get their family back together," he said. "We were up in Duluth supporting the Disabled American Veterans. So, we do a lot of that kind of stuff."
A little about the CAF
The CAF itself started from humble beginnings in the 1950s.
Known at first as the Cactus Air Force, it became known for many years as the Confederate Air Force.
Based in Texas, different wings popped up around the country over the years, the one in Missouri being one of them.
The name was changed to the Commemorative Air Force in 1999 and since then, Moore said, it's been a little easier to get corporate sponsorships.
"That opened things up for a lot of companies like Boeing and Anheuser Busch at the time," he said.
The actual paint job on "Show Me!" was done in what was at the time a new paint facility at the Boeing plant in St. Louis, where the F/A-18 Super Hornet is built.
"The company and the unions, they went together," Moore said. "They took it in there, they researched, they stripped it, they painted it with the emblems you see on it today."
The day of the grand opening for the paint facility, several dignitaries, including the governor of Missouri, gathered for a ceremony.
"There was The Star Spangled Banner and everything," he said. "Then these big doors open up and everybody's expecting an F/A-18 but there's this B-25."
Moore said "Show Me!" flies predominately in the Midwest, the cost of fuel and maintenance being too cost prohibitive to take it out much further than that.
It costs a lot to operate a "warbird" like the B-25 and the $395 per person fee to ride in it helps cover some of the costs to operate it.
The flight Morgan and Steve Shepard went on in Eagle River was one of three flights with five people each.
Moore said a few years ago, the Federal Aviation Administration approved the CAF's participation in a program called the "Living History Flight Experience."
"The CAF got a lot of planes in the program," he said. "It helps quite a bit but we don't make any money on this."
It's an all-volunteer effort. Moore said during lean times CAF members have paid hangar fees out of their own pockets.
The crew for "Show Me!" in Eagle River was a sort of cross section of who makes up the organization's membership.
Besides Moore, there's Tim Dexter, a State Farm Insurance agent who's been with the Missouri wing for over 10 years.
Richard Hyde, a retired attorney, is a CAF member who used to live in Minnesota and now lives in Atlanta, Ga.
He didn't make the trip up for the Duluth show but he was in Eagle River Aug. 25.
Thompsen, the United Airlines Boeing 777 pilot, has been around aircraft pretty much all of his life, learning to fly, thanks to his dad, at a young age.
He's been involved with the CAF since 2010.
When they were done in Eagle River, Thompsen flew the B-25 to its home base at St. Charles, Mo. late Monday afternoon.
He would then fly his personal aircraft, a Cessna 172, home to just south of Chicago, he said. The flight takes about an hour and 45 minutes.
Thompsen had the next day off and then Wednesday, it was off to Beijing, China for United Airlines.
"I have a very understanding wife," he said.
Brian Jopek may be reached at [email protected].
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