 Gina Gallo's Songs to Aging Children First of Three |
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 The Mitchell B-25 Bomber |
Remembering the glory days
of flight in war and peace
of TheColumnists.com
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A very wise woman (okay, it was my mother) once told me that the only limitations that exist are those we place on ourselves. By her example, I learned to envision goals without limits, and to appreciate those who refused to allow limits to hamper the pursuit of their dreams. Somewhere along the way, I learned that age is just a number tallied only in the final accounting of what we've done and how we did it. And while our exterior appearances may age, youth remains eternal - in the dreams that ignite our hearts, and the knowledge that there is a love beyond reckoning watching over us all. The stories to be presented as 'Songs to Aging Children' are odes to those who followed their dreams. Gina Gallo |
They say you never forget your first time. For Bob Spelman,
it’s harder to acknowledge his last--especially on a day
like today. He’s on the beach at Daytona, waiting for Skyfest
to begin. It’s the Air Force’s aerobatics show featuring
the Thunderbirds, an event that never fails to dazzle the record
crowds in attendance. At just past noon, Bob sits with his oldest
son and namesake, scanning the pristine sky. It’s a perfect
field of limitless dreams, a siren’s song in azure notes
that pulse through him, transport him to another time, another
song.
It’s the summer of 1941. A college senior, Bob is in love,
so completely captivated he can only think about one thing. Like
most great loves, it started as a flirtation. As a college junior,
he signed up for a Civilian Pilot Training Program, where the
$25 fee bought him a physical exam, insurance, and an introduction
to what would become his most enduring love and passion. He was
hooked from the beginning. After 35 hours of ground school earned
his pilot's license, he slid into the cockpit of his first bi-plane
to begin the business of aerobatic flying. Guiding his aircraft
through a series of snap-rolls, splitting the clouds with stylized
spins and loops and chandelles, he knew.
For him, it was a marriage made in heaven but more than that,
a transcendence to a higher state. He was touching the face of
God.
In 1941, during his senior year in college, Bob applies for the
Army-Air Corp Cadet program. He’s 21 now, in love with flying
and prepared to devote his life to that consuming passion. But
the summer months drift into autumn and still no military response.
Just after his 22nd birthday, Pearl Harbor is bombed.
On December 8th, Bob reports for his military physical at Church
Street in New York City. Finally, it’s official. The brand
new Aviation Cadet is sent to Maxwell Field, Alabama, for six
weeks of pre-flight training.
For a young man on a mission, grace descends at each take-off.
Controls are checked,
(“Free and unobstucted?” “Check.”), instruments
set, (“Compass? Frequencies? Altimeter?” “Check”),
gauges determined to be in the green. After the trim tab is checked,
and the engine tested for run-up, he’s clear, lining up
his aircraft with center line, accelerating to take-off speed
as the control stick is eased back. Airborne now, he climbs toward
the sun, marveling, as he always does, over the gift of winged
freedom.
By 1942, the 22-year-old Second Lieutenant Spelman has earned
his wings, his commission, and a B-25 twin-engine Mitchell bomber.
Orders are cut for overseas assignments, and the pilots sent
to Savannah, Georgia, where they’ll fly to Cairo. Dreams
of glory, the heady rush of duty and commitment dilutes Bob’s
pre-departure nerves. In heaven, in the sanctity of his cockpit,
there is no fear when God smiles just above the corridors of
clouds.
Bound for Egypt, the planes have been painted with a special
desert camouflage, a shade the military brass describes as ‘desert
sand.’ To everyone else, including the chagrined commissioned
pilots, the bombers are a relentlessly feminine pink. Even with
each aircraft’s added nose-art featuring scantily clad pin-up
girls, the ‘pink bombers’ gain notoriety as a squadron
apart from the standard macho military issue. But Bob’s
enthusiasm and commitment can’t be dampened by blushing
B-25s. He’s assigned to serve under British Command in Alexandria,
where American bombers team with the Royal Air Force to fight
Rommel in North Africa.
The scenario changes. Soaring sundances on gilded wings are only
memories now. War is Hell, even skimming so close to God. Each
flight becomes another step toward victory, delivering death
to some, salvation to others. The pink bombers fly tactical missions
by day, flying in formation to drop bombs in targeted areas.
Under cover of darkness, strategic missions are executed. The
bombers fly longer distances, from Africa to Sicily, relying
on dead-reckoning navigation to guide them, without lights, through
the blackened landscape.
To help the pilots locate their targets at night, the British
Air Force uses ‘pathfinders,’ --planes flying low at
2000 feet that drop enough incendiaries to illuminate targets.
Flying behind at 10,000 feet, the pink B-25s swoop in, one by
one, to drop their bombs.
For Lieutenant Spelman, the deadly air choreography continues
for two years and 53 missions.
From Cairo to Tunisia to Sicily and beyond, his bomber soars
like a bird of prey, straddling the line between destruction
and conquest. Hunkered down with the Royal Air Force, he shares
‘bully beef’ and tea--the British rations that feed
these dark angels--and learns about the commonalities of mankind.
Delivering each salvo that ends more lives and drives back the
enemy, he discovers there are no true winners in war, only survivors
who’ve paid a price. And each time he folds his six foot
one-inch frame into the cockpit, he acknowledges the higher power
that co-pilots his missions and allows him to soar.
More than half a century later, Lt. Bob Spelman sits on the Daytona
beach, watching the sky. An AT-6, the same type of single engine
fighter plane he trained on in gunnery school, banks to the left
for a thrilling sequence of aerobatic maneuvers. The awed crowd
can barely applaud before the next plane swoops in. It’s
a P-51, once considered to be the hottest fighter aircraft of
World War II. Just one soaring dive is all it takes to transport
him.
While his 82-year-old body reclines on the beach, Bob’s
young warrior heart has slipped into the cockpit, ready to enter
that special state of grace. He’s there again, soaring on
wings silvered by grace and glory, beyond the boundaries of earth.
And by the time the Thunderbirds’ F-16 jets roar through
the heavens in perfect formation, his face is aglow with it--a
total allegiance to that squadron of angels, and gratitude for
his membership in their fraternity of flight.
But the passing years have taught him that wars wax and wane,
that hostilities fester, severing fragile bonds of accord. And--a
lesson for all who thought it wouldn't happen--that there are
no safe places, no soil too sacred to escape the ravages of war.
It must be the sun that has his eyes misting, and the heat that
has his heartbeat tripping just a bit faster. No one in the crowd
would ever recognize him as an airborne warrior, or guess that
this silver-haired man once flew on golden dreams. Bob Spelman
watches the spiraling jetfighters, and remembers his first time,
and his last time flying where angels fear to tread, and touching
the face of God.
Following his distinguished
service in the Army-Air Corps, Lt. Bob Spelman flew as a commercial
pilot for American Airlines. After marriage and five
children, he exchanged his wings for an executive position in
the furniture industry. Now widowed, the 83 year-old Bob
resides in Ormand Beach, Florida, where he does extensive community
volunteer work with the homeless as well as county jail inmates.
In between tooling around town in his fire engine red '77 Checker
("220,000 miles and still going strong!" Bob says),
he's found time to write and publish his wartime memoirs. THE
PINK BOMBER , ISBN# 0-5952019-6-2 is available through iUniverse
Press. To order, call toll-free: 1.877.823.9235. The price is
$18.95 plus shipping. Comments may be sent to Lt.
Spelman at Rbedbugger2@aol.com
© 2001 by Gina Gallo. The Gina Gallo caricature is ©
2001 by Jim Hummel.
You
can comment on this column or contact Gina Gallo with an email
to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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