Preserving a legacy while leaving their own

  • Published
  • By Capt. Ali Kojak
  • 62nd Airlift Wing Public Affairs
JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCHORD, Wash. --  Nearly 40 volunteers dedicate their time and talent each week to keep the McChord Air Museum running. With only one paid staff member, the volunteers work over 9,500 hours each year supporting various operations.

"Without the volunteers to support this organization, it wouldn't exist today," said Master Sgt (ret.) Raymond Jordan, McChord Air Museum curator.

A large percentage of those volunteers spend their days in Building 305, working in the hangar to restore historical aircraft to their former glory. Once sufficiently restored, aircraft are often moved to Heritage Hill to proudly represent the legacy of McChord Field. The most recent addition to Heritage Hill is the Douglas B-18 bomber, the oldest aircraft presently in the museum's collection. The B-18 crew has spent over 20 years painstakingly rebuilding the bomber, which represents similar aircraft assigned to the 17th Bomb Group here at McChord when it opened as an Army base in 1940.

"I was on the flightline when the B-18 first came in with the number one engine smoking," said Lt. Col. (ret.) Donald Tracy, a veteran pilot of World War II, Korea and Vietnam. "It reminded me of one of my C-124 flights. I heard they were going to restore the aircraft, so I called and asked to be part of the team."

Twenty seven years later, Colonel Tracy is still committed to this labor of love. He is currently fabricating a radio operator's seat, using original plans for the plane that have been converted into microfiche. Colonel Tracy entered the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1942 and flew more than 10 different aircraft before retiring in 1968. He flew the C-124 at Moses Lake, Wash., with the 62nd Troop Carrier Wing and was later stationed at McChord as part of the Military Air Transport Service. McChord Field is part of his personal history, which includes flying 125 combat missions in Vietnam. Restoring aircraft that are also part of McChord's history seemed only natural.

"I have kept on going all these years because the airplane needed the parts," he said. "Sometimes the only way to get them was to make them ourselves. I'd like to see the aircraft as it originally was, and we are just about there."

Colonel Tracy is just one of many crew members who have personal ties to McChord Field. Although the crew has had as many as 50 different members over the years, it is now down to less than ten. Some members have passed on, and it is their memory that motivates others to keep working.

"Glenn Morgan was the project's crew chief for at least 20 years," said Herb Tollefson, who took over the role. "I am driven by his memory, and also by the history of this plane and our own crew."

The crew is comprised of Army Air Corps, Navy, Air Force and civilian veterans who have combined service as crew chiefs, pilots, machinists and flight engineers. Mr. Tollefson has been rebuilding aircraft since 1943, when he was part of a group deployed to Malta during World War II. The Mediterranean island was used as an emergency landing field during the conflict, and Mr. Tollefson's group was responsible for getting the planes back in the air.

"It got into my blood when I was in Malta," he said. "We had the enemy close by and knew our guys were getting bombed. Our job was to get the aircraft off the island any way we could."

A 1943 Letter of Commendation for his group reads: "With limited facilities and spare parts these men succeeded in putting into the air . . . over 50 aircraft many of which might otherwise have been lost, accomplishing an echelon of work considered beyond facilities available and utilizing salvaged parts and improvising in order to accomplish their objective."

The same words could be used to describe the work of the volunteer restoration crews. The B-18 arrived at McChord Field in 1983, and had since gotten a complete overhaul. The crew has fabricated a new bombardier's station, bomb bay doors, keel beam, bomb bay structure and rudder. Several crew members noted the difficulty, but satisfaction, in restoring the bomb bay and its doors.

"Building the bomb bay doors was definitely the hardest part," said Carl Schuler, who served at McChord as a crew chief for B-24s during WWII. "It was really tedious getting everything to work, but we had a retired Boeing engineer, Milt James, on the crew, and he really worked at it."

Mr. Schuler worked on P-38s, B-24s, C-47s, B-17s, and one B-26 during his time at McChord. Coming back to work with the B-18 crew offered an opportunity to refresh his skills.

"When I was here during WWII, I really enjoyed it because every day was different, and there was a new challenge each day," he said. "With the B-18, it's the same. There is always something we can do to make it better."

The crew will stop at nothing to restore the aircraft. They have traveled to B-18 crash sites over the years looking for usable parts. In 1992, one such mission took five crew members to Kohala Mountain, Hawaii, where a B-18 had crashed in 1941. All in their seventies, the crew chartered a helicopter to take them to the crash site, which was located between two mountainous peaks. Carrying in 70 pounds of tools on their backs, the men slid down a sixty degree embankment to get to the wreckage. After camping out in pouring rain for nearly a week, the team was able to recover 600 pounds of salvaged aircraft parts. Finding parts for a seventy-year old aircraft is no easy task.

"These guys used to come down to my shop and scrounge for parts," said Senior Master Sgt. (ret.) Rod Wilson, who worked at McChord Field as an avionics technician. "I did some work for them once refurbishing a radio when I was on active duty. . .and when I retired I thought it would be neat to join the team."

Several units on McChord Field support the restoration crews, especially maintenance shops with extra scrap metal or aging machinery.

The volunteers need all the help they can get, because even before an aircraft is finished, crews are looking for the next project. Currently engulfing the hangar is an Air Force OA-10A, a seaplane known in the Navy as a PB-Y Catalina. The PB-Y rescue airplane was stationed here as part of the 43rd Air Rescue Squadron in the late forties. During WWII, OA-10A crews rescued hundreds of downed fliers. The specific aircraft being restored here crashed in Wisconsin in 1983, and came to McChord on a truck in 1988. A volunteer restoration crew has been fixing her up ever since.

"When I was in the Air Force, I took great pride in taking an airplane that was broken, working on it, and putting it back into commission," said Master Sgt. (ret.) Chuck Bowen, who acts as the hangar chief coordinating all of the volunteers. "You can watch it take off and say, 'I was part of that.' Well, now we can't do that anymore, but what we can do is take an old aircraft, restore it to its former glory, and put it on Heritage Hill. You can watch people walking through the area admire it, and still think, 'I was part of that.'"

Sergeant Bowen is part of a PB-Y crew that also comprises Navy, Army, Air Force and civilian volunteers. They have the experience of a chief petty officer, as well as crew members who worked for both Douglas and Boeing. When the PB-Y arrived, the wings had been sawed off. The crew has rebuilt and attached the wings, re-skinned the entire belly of the plane, and converted it back into a military aircraft. The project is about 98 percent complete, and will eventually be painted in the colors of the 43rd ARS. The Catalina will be the only one of its kind on display in Air Mobility Command.

"We really have a multitude of talents in our group," said Sergeant Bowen. "It's important for people to see what these airplanes used to look like and preserve that history. When the PB-Y came in it was basically a truckload of scrap metal, which isn't something people want to look at. We put it back together and allow people to actually see history."

Sergeant Bowen joined the Air Force in 1951 for the Korean War. As an aircraft mechanic with his Airframe and Powerplant license, he spent time in Strategic Air Command before going on loan to the Central Intelligence Agency for a few years. He eventually made it back to McChord in 1964 and became the crew chief for the general's aircraft. After becoming a flight engineer, he returned to McChord Field and worked as part of Military Airlift Command until his retirement in 1973. However, it's not just his love of aviation history and knowledge of aircraft maintenance that motivates his restoration work.

"My favorite part (or volunteering for the museum) is the camaraderie of the crew," he said. "We do this because it keeps us going and keeps us alive. We are a support group of sorts."

Many volunteers echo this sentiment. They love history and military aircraft, but they also love the friendships they've made over the years. The one thing they aren't looking for is recognition. The crews are truly quiet professionals, laboring for decades to bring a piece of McChord Field's history back to life. The legacy of the volunteer restoration crews will not only be the historical aircraft gracing Heritage Hill, but the memory of their dedication and devotion to the mission.