[ARC5] Memphis Bell Radio Op Passes Into History

[Jim Haynes]

On Sat, 28 May 2016, Joe Connor via ARC5 wrote:
> 
> But seriously, the emotions these guys have when they encounter their
> wartime memories are something else. A few years ago, I was at an air show
> that featured a B-17. There was a former B-17 crewman there who took his

I had a similar experience several years ago when my home town was 
celebrating a wartime ordnance proving ground.  Most of what is left of
the wartime installation is the airport, so that's where the celebration
was held.  We had a number of then-Confederate now-Commemorative Air Force
planes fly in for the occasion: a German HE-111 (which has since crashed)
and a B-17 and a B-24 and Fifi, the only flying B-29.  Someone living in
Hot Springs asked me if Fifi was really going to be there, and I told him
as much as we could be sure about an airplane that old, she would be 
there.  In fact she was a day late arriving due to a maintenance issue.

The man from Hot Springs came and turned out to be a radio operator on
a B-29 in WW-II.  When he climbed up through that hatch for the first
time in over 50 years and sat in the radio operator's chair I learned the 
meaning of "tickled pink".  At that time Fifi had little or no authentic
radio equipment; now she has been fitted out properly, thanks to the
Rockwell-Collins ham club in the Dallas area.

Jim W6JVE