WWII Newsletter January 2020

The National Museum of World War II Aviation

January 2020

In This Issue

Museum 2019 Accomplishments

4rd Quarter Volunteer

Museums Reap Benefits

Battle of the Bulge

Museum Gift Shop

Your Comments

Klaers Details 2019 Accomplishments at Museum

Bill Klaers, president and CEO of the Museum, summed up the year at the Christmas party Dec. 14, saying he had "the best job in the world," that the enthusiasm of volunteers was "phenomenal," that "there are certain things money can't buy," and that the Museum is "dream come true."

In a talk at the new Kaija Raven Shook Aeronautical Pavilion, he detailed a range of accomplishments by volunteers:

The University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, education program under Vern Patterso n, which has provided 73 engineering students with real-life experiences.

The Pikes Peak Regional Air Show, which aerobatic pilot Kyle Franklin said was one of the top three shows in which he has performed.

Aircraft collections photo shoot, which involved four days of shooting from before sunrise to well after sunset.

Thirteen Museum events, run by Debi Klaers and her team even as new hangar construction and planning for the Air Show were underway.


	Christmas at the Museum

Docent operations under Phil Heacock and his team, with over 98 percent of Trip Advisor reviews in the four- and five-star category, and with the Museum still the No.1 museum in Colorado Springs.

Collections, under the leadership of Gene Pfeffer after taking over for Gene's wife Carol, who sadly passed away. The team, among other things, handled hundreds of newly donated artifacts and created 15 new displays and reworked 20 others.

Gene Pfeffer, as curator and historian, also helped refine the layout of the new Museum, developed 300 graphics that will populate it, and selected and placed 30 pieces of aviation art.

Gift shop design and installation under Larry McManus and his team, which designed, purchased and built the new gift shop -- with retail to date 27 percent greater than for the same period in 2018. Office layout and installation were accomplished by Jack Humphrey and his team.

Low voltage systems design by Anthony Klein, Jason Taylor and crew. The effort covered security, fiber optic and sound systems.

Security team under Brian Corrado, which wrote an emergency plan, ran Air Show security and installed numerous security cameras.

Library team under Dan Neff, which logged nearly 9,500 items into its data base, 5,500 of which are technical manuals.

Mark Earle's education team, which served over 3,400 students in the K-12 program. The program was the focal point of the Air Show's KidZone. The team also planned and implemented the Air Show's High Flight program for kids with special needs, and constructed the commemorative brick plaza.

Allison Bryan and her team handled the Brick, Bench and Membership programs, which have helped with construction costs of the Kaija Raven Shook Aeronautical Pavilion. In Phase One of the Brick program, 201 bricks were installed; under Phase Two, 19 were sold between July and December, totaling another $4,750 in donations. Seven benches have been sold so far for $35,000 in donations; 64 memberships also have been sold.

Lauren Tong, who has launched a social media program.

Jack Humphrey, who handles purchasing, pickups and deliveries, opening and closing, inspections and everything that is not covered by someone else.

Kaija Raven Shook Aeronautical Pavilion, construction of which was completed on time and within the $6.5 million budget. Certificate of occupancy was received December 12, 2019.

Design, fabrication and installation of the mini Pavilion within the Museum. Harry Johnson's crew built 15 rolling board display cases; modified all 45 existing display cases to match the new museum decor; built ten memorial benches; moved existing artifact cases, and created additional displays in the new hangar.

Teams of volunteers worked to prepare the Pavilion for a "soft" opening -- without exhibits -- on Thursday, October 10. They worked on Oct. 6, 7, 8 and 9, and some worked after that. Some volunteers worked on many different tasks, and some only worked on specific tasks.

Here's a list of those who worked to prepare the new museum pavilion for it's soft opening:

Sunday 10/6/2019

Kevin Bogan; Johnny Drury; Jack Humphrey; James Klages; Anthony Klein (with daughter Clarabelle and son Connor); John Lory; Sandra Faye McLaughlin; John Moffitt; Dan Neff; Andrew Oertig; Ted Palmer; Andrew Pixley; Betsy Radney; Nancy Schooley; Gary Streets; Ashby Taylor; Lauren Tong; Mark Warren, and Ian Wayman.

Monday 10/7/2019

Ralph Brands; Johnny Drury; Robert Garcia; Linne Haddock; Wayne Hall; Edward Hoden; Jack Humphrey; Don Johnson; James Klages; John Lory; Sandra Faye McLaughlin; John Moffitt; Dan Neff; Andrew Oertig; Larry Overmyer; Jim Palmer; Ted Palmer; Betsy Radney; Lonnie Roberts; Lauren Tong, and Ian Wayman.

Tuesday 10/8/2019

Ralph Brands; Johnny Drury; Wayne Hall; Edward Hoden; Jack Humphrey; Don Johnson; James Klages; James Leichtnam; John Lory; Sandra Faye McLaughlin; John Moffitt; Andrew Oertig; Jim Palmer; Ted Palmer; Betsy Radney; Lonnie Roberts, and Gary Streets.

Wednesday 10/9/2019

Ralph Brands; Robert Garcia; Wayne Hall; Edward Hoden; Don Johnson; James Klages; Edward Keeser; John Lory; Sandra Faye McLaughlin; Andrew Oertig; Larry Overmyer; Ted Palmer; Domenic Pettinato; Betsy Radney; Hans Stoll, and Lauren Tong.

Although a number of jobs were tackled, there were no specific teams or team leaders in some cases.

An example of a team with a leader was the paint crew, led by Tom Heaney. Those who joined him included Ralph Brands, Johnny Drury, Robert Garcia, Linne Haddock, Wayne Hall, Ed Hoden, Don Johnson, Debi Klaers, Sandra McLaughlin, Ed Mika, Andy Oertig, Jim Palmer, Ted Palmer, Domenic Pettinato, Hans Stoll, Lauren Tong and Rich Tuttle.

Volunteer hours for 2019 through November totaled 36,288 -- up more than 30 percent for total hours in 2018. That, said Bill Klaers, equates to over $1.5 million in human expertise donated to the Museum.

Rich Tuttle

Docent

Museum Volunteer of the 4th Quarter 2019

Don Johnson

Please join us in congratulating Museum Docent Don Johnson who has been selected by the Awards Committee as the Volunteer of the Quarter for the 4th Quarter of 2019. His selection was announced at the annual museum volunteers

Christmas Party.

Don Johnson has been indispensable as a docent since he started working at the museum. He shares generously of his time, even though he is a full-time commercial pilot and Colorado Springs business owner. He averages 4.5 tours per month and is continually rated with 5-stars on Trip Advisor. In addition to the many hours Don spends at the museum working as a docent, he spent 850 hours building a model of the USS Hornet which will be featured in the museum for years to come. He is passionate about the National Museum of World War II Aviation and the mission that we are fulfilling. Don is most deserving of this special recognition.

Three Colorado Springs Museums Reap Air Show Benefits

Three Colorado Springs museums, including the National Museum of World War II Aviation, received checks of $12,000 each as proceeds from the 2019 Pikes Peak Regional Air Show.

The checks were presented to members of the boards of directors of Fort Carson's 4th Infantry Division Museum and the Peterson Air Force Base Museum, as well as the National Museum of World War II Aviation. The directors represented the more than 400 volunteers who made the air show possible. The presentations were made during a Dec. 13 ceremony at the 4th Infantry Division Museum.

The air show drew about 17,500 visitors during its two-day run Sept. 21 and 22 at the Colorado Springs Airport.

From left: Al Strait, Air Force 21st Space Wing; Joe Berg, 4th ID Museum; Robin Lynch, 4th ID Museum; Phil Heacock; Bruce Long, Peterson AFB Museum; Col. Brian Wortinger, Fort Carson; Casey Parker, Pikes Peak Regional Airshow board member, and Aaron Wood, Pikes Peak Regional Airshow board member.

"Significant credit goes to these three museums for the their active participation and support of the air show," said Phil Heacock, treasurer of the Pikes Peak Air Show board of directors, "Each of these excellent museums preserves for the future generations a unique perspective on American military history and the proud service of generations of armed service members. The Pikes Peak Regional Air Show is pleased to help support their respective missions."

"We were successful this year because the show was a little bit bigger than it was last time, in '17, and so we were able to do a little bit better for you this time than we did the last time," Heacock told the board members. After the last show, in September of 2017, each museum received a check for $10,000.

Board member Robin Lynch accepted for the 4th ID Museum and member Bruce Wood accepted for the Peterson AFB Museum. Phil Heacock accepted for the National Museum of World War II Aviation.

"We could not do this air show without your help," he told the board members. "There's just no way at all, and we really appreciate the support that we get. We get a lot of folks from your organizations that volunteer to help us."

Joe Berg, curator of the 4th Infantry Division Museum, returned the compliment. "The amount that you are donating to us represents an entire quarter's worth of funding, not for my museum, but for the entire western region of the United States Army," he said.

Heacock also thanked Col. Brian K. Wortinger, commander of the Fort Carson garrison, for allowing the air show to use Fort Carson's big ADACG facility at the Colorado Springs Airport. Heacock said it's "probably the best site in this country for an air show. It really, really is superb."

The next air show is slated for 2022.

Rich Tuttle

Docent

Battle of the Bulge: Marauder vs. Messerschmitt

Bomber pilots don't often fire with effect at enemy fighters, but it happened during the Battle of the Bulge, 75 years ago this month.

Hitler launched his stunning surprise attack on Dec. 16, 1944, through Belgium's Ardennes Forest. There were signs that an attack was brewing, especially after mid-October, "but Allied intelligence appears regularly to have misinterpreted" the information, according to one history.

Bad weather initially stymied an aerial response to the mass of German tanks charging for the bounty of Allied oil at the Dutch city of Antwerp, 100 miles away. But as clouds lifted, the full force of Allied airpower was marshalled to help defeat the attack, and it was defeated on Jan. 25, 1945. Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945.

B-26 Marauder

Richard S. "Dick" Bailey, a B-26 Marauder bomber pilot, was in one of the first waves of Allied planes striking German targets on Dec. 23, 1944, the first clear day after Hitler's attack began. His unit's mission that Saturday was to fly from its base at Beauvais, France, to bomb the railroad bridge at Euskirchen in western Germany, some 20 miles south of Cologne.

By the end of that hard-fought day, Dick would be credited with damaging a German Messerschmitt Me-109 fighter.

He hit it with a blast from the four .50-caliber machine guns fixed to the forward fuselage of his B-26. It dove steeply, trailing smoke, into an under-cast. Because it wasn't seen to have hit the ground, Dick was given a credit of "damaged," not "destroyed." If it had been the latter, he might have become the only bomber pilot in the European theater to have shot down an enemy fighter.


Messerschmitt Me-109

The Euskirchen Bridge was a target because its destruction would "keep the Germans from bringing up more armor and troops," Dick remembered in a 2018 interview with the Newsletter during a 2018 meeting of the B-26 Marauder Historical Society at the Colorado Springs Marriott Hotel. Dick, now 97, lives in Atlanta.

Dick had flown 63 missions, including three on D-Day from the unit's base at the time in England. This was his 64th.

Before takeoff, he said, crews were told that they would be facing "fighters and probably flak." Usually, he said, "When the flak stopped, look out, because their air-to-ground communication was such that...the fighters would [then] come in. In this particular case, I don't know what happened to the communication, but the flak was still coming up and their fighters were coming in" at the same time.

Dick was flying on the left wing of his leader's B-26 during the bomb run at about 10,000 feet. Dick's B-26 missed the bridge's span but hit the approaches at either end, making it temporarily impossible to use.

First Lieutenant Richard Bailey

"I saw a P-38 shoot down an Me-109" during the run, he said in describing the fast-paced and up-close events of that day. "We [did] a right turn off the target after dropping [bombs], and my tail gunner said, 'Here they come!', and an Me-109 came in. I don't know why he was that close, but he couldn't have been more than 50-75 feet above the lead plane, and my top turret gunner opened up.... [He] was puncturing the [Me-109's] fuselage, going up along the engine, and then a burst of orange flame and then he came back across the cockpit and the [German pilot] got out and the tail gunner said [the German plane] 'just exploded behind us!'"

Just then, Dick's tail gunner began firing at another enemy plane, and it went down.

Then, "an Me-109 pulled up between me and the lead plane, and we were flying close formation...the German pilot, square goggles, looked at me.... It seemed like forever, but it couldn't have been more than ten, twelve seconds, he's gone."

"Shortly after that," Dick continued, "I saw an Me-109 maybe 250-300 yards out in front of us, crossing left to right. And I thought to myself, 'If he turns into us, our frontal defense is not all that great and somebody might get hurt, so I hit the triggers on my four .50-cals.

"To be honest, I mainly just wanted to get some tracer out there and let him know that we saw him and discourage any attack. So I hit the triggers for two seconds, maybe. Of course, at 800 rounds a minute, with four guns firing, there were up to 100 slugs in the air, including tracer.

"And he had a big puff of black smoke come out. He was headed down about 45 degrees, trailing black smoke, and disappeared in the under-cast," about 5,000 feet below.

"If I had been a fighter pilot, of course I would have followed him down and verified him," Dick said. "But you maintain formation in bomber formations. We don't know whether he exploded, whether he bailed out, or whether he made it back to his base. All we know is he was he was trailing black smoke," having been hit in the engine and fuel tanks.

"As far as intelligence knew, I was the only bomber pilot in Europe to shoot down a German fighter," Dick was quoted as saying in a book, "Combat Veterans' Stories of World War II, Volume 1, North Africa and Europe, November 1942 - May 1945," by Norman Black. But Dick wasn't given official credit for a kill.

The squadron's history says that a Staff Sgt. Milham, apparently Dick's top turret gunner, "destroyed [an] Me-109"; that Staff Sgt. R.M. Chapman, Dick's tail gunner, "probably destroyed [an] Me-109", and that Dick himself "damaged [an] Me-109". Dick and his crew made it safely back to base.

Dick Bailey (left) with Steve Hoofnagle (right) of the Commemorative Air Force Dixie Wing and his wife Lynne, with the B-26 "Flak-Bait"

Ten B-26s from Dick's unit, the 450th Bomb Squadron of the Ninth Air Force's 322nd Bomb Group, were dispatched in a group formation of 33 to attack the Euskirchen bridge, according to the history. It says twenty-seven bombed the bridge. Two failed to bomb and two were lost to German fighters, both of which "were seen to go down in flames in the target area with 2-3 chutes observed. Twenty-two aircraft from the group formation received battle damage." One B-26 crewman was killed, four were wounded, and 13 were missing. Six of the squadron's B-26s were damaged by flak and fighters.

Behind the Scenes with "Flak-Bait" - Ask an Expert Live

"Flak-Bait", a B-26 famous for flying over 200 combat missions -- more than any other American plane in World War II -- was assigned to one of Dick's sister squadrons, 449th of the 322nd Bomb Group. But it's unclear if it flew against the Euskirchen Bridge on Dec. 23, 1944.

Dick left the military after the war as a first lieutenant. He earned his engineering degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. He worked as an engineer for several companies in several states before retiring in 1996 at age 73.

Rich Tuttle

Docent

Museum Gift Shop Has a Home In New Pavilion

The Museum Gift Shop has a wide array of unique WWII aviation artifacts. Whether it is exceptional aviation posters or actual parts from aircraft flown during the war, there is something in the Gift Shop for almost every collector's taste. No, the WWII vehicles are not for sale but their restoration gives you some idea about the talents of our volunteers.


Amazing one of a kind gift shop items

That special item that would let your visitors know you care about our national history and the sacrifices of the Greatest Generation is in the Museum gift shop or one of our talented volunteers can create it for you with some conversation and coaxing. The variety of items on display is amazing and most are truly one of a kind. Visit the Gift Shop on your next visit to the Museum. You will be amazed at the selection and quality.

The talented volunteer restoration staff has the facilities, imagination, and items to create that unique item which will be the centerpiece of your office or home and generate amazing conversations about WWII, aviation, your experiences and skills, or the progress of technology from the war until today. Our Docents work hard to prepare you for the history test you might receive from your children or grandchildren. But don't miss out on the opportunity to have a very special treasure from the talented hands of our restoration staff.

Your Comments

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