
DATE: Wednesday, August 27, 1997            TAG: 9708270582

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY PAUL CLANCY, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:  114 lines

FORMER WWII FLIERS VISIT VINTAGE PLANES

There's still plenty of spring in their steps as they climb into the belly of the great war bird.

And suddenly they're back at an airfield in England or India or Guam, spinning the props, racing down the runway, climbing though a low ceiling of clouds. Joining hundreds of other bombers droning through the night. Jockeying for position, contrails streaking behind, running through curtains of flak to their targets.

Tuesday at a much smaller field, the Hampton Roads Airport, five men mustered together to ramble through the hulking bodies of World War II bombers brought here by the Confederate Air Force, a kind of flying museum of vintage aircraft.

Now in their 70s, four members of the Maury High 1942 football team and one from the 1939 Maury team, just a handful of those who flew off to war during that period, made it to the gathering.

And they let the memories come flooding back.

The first night he flew ``the hump,'' the pilots' name for the Himalayan Mountains that they crossed from India to China and Burma, Dick Millan was startled by the static electricity produced by a thunderstorm.

The phenomenon, known as ``St. Elmo's Fire,'' a shimmering dance of electrical sparks, started at the propellers, moved to the wings and the wind screen, then jumped into the cabin. ``I'll be damned. It's going to eat me,'' he thought.

Millan played tackle for Maury's 1942 team, ``the first team to defeat Granby High,'' the team picture proclaims. He was one of 10 team members who signed up for the Army Air Corps, the forerunner of the Air Force, after graduation in 1943.

One of them, Carter McVay, was shot down and killed near Shanghai. A few others have died, and some were not well enough to join the gathering.

One of the deceased 1942 team members, Jack Wilkins, was there through his diary, which his son Walter brought.

On his first mission - Nov. 26, 1944 - Wilkins, a B-24 tail gunner, wrote about bombing a railway viaduct over Germany. ``The flak was meager but I was praying. I never knew how weak I could possibly get.''

Again, an entry for Jan. 3, 1945: ``A couple of buzz bombs came over. Got damn scared and that's no kidding.''

George Hughes, captain of the '42 team, remembers the blazing fires that incendiary bombs made as cities went up in flames. In the middle of one inferno, a vacuum caused the bomber to plummet 6,000 feet.

``The pilot was knocked out; the co-pilot took over,'' he said. ``Everybody was slammed into the ceiling. It's amazing how we got through that. I realized I wanted to get home in a hurry.''

Hughes returned to a football scholarship at the College of William and Mary and an All-Pro career as a linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers, then coached the Norfolk Neptunes.

On Tuesday, the favorite was a gleaming B-17 Flying Fortress sporting the name ``Sentimental Journey'' and the swimsuited figure of Betty Grable, but bristling with gun turrets and toting a bomb bay full of serious-looking 500 pound bombs.

The teammates stepped gingerly into the belly of the Flying Fortress, tiptoed across the catwalk over the yawning bomb bay bristling with 500-pound bombs.

``Sometimes they'd get jammed and you had to kick them out,'' Hughes said. ``That was my job. I had the strongest legs.''

Some sucked in their bellies to make it through the bomber's tight openings, laughing about it. They paused and lined up the sights of the 50-caliber machine guns poking out both sides of the plane. The space was more cramped than they remembered.

``That was my station,'' said Ted Bacalis, pointing to the green leather chair facing the radio equipment.

For Bacalis, who came back to coach basketball and baseball at Maury, memories of dawn flights from an airfield in England came flashing back: ``miles and miles of planes, with thousands of contrails filling the sky.''

And flak, curtains of flak from anti-aircraft guns.

``If there was no flak around, you could expect fighter planes,'' Hughes added.

And the beautiful sound of the engines.

``All of us have a feeling of the sound of the engine because the engine kept you alive,'' said Millan. ``When I hear these engines running, it reminds me of cold days in England.''

Millan was recalled for the Berlin airlift in 1948 and stayed in what became the Air Force, retiring as a lieutenant colonel.

Charles Sanderlin played end for Maury and went to bombardier school, but the war wound down before he could see action.

Leo Martone, on the other hand, saw more than he cared to. A member of Maury's state champion 1939 team, Martone was on his eighth mission, flying a bombing run over Germany in 1944, when his plane was hit and lost an engine. ``The pilot feathered the other engine to balance the plane, but we ran into a big weather front and had to bail out.''

They landed in the middle of German troops massing for the Battle of the Bulge, and spent the rest of the war in a prisoner-of-war camp near the Polish border.

The young fliers made it home, most of them. More than 50 years have rolled by, but they haven't forgotten. They masked their fear then, but today wonder how they did.

Said Millan, ``As they say in Tidewater, Virginia, we were skeered.'' ILLUSTRATION: Flying into the past

MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN Photos/The Virginian-Pilot

Charles Sanderlin climbs Tuesday into a B-17 on display at the

Hampton Roads Airport. Nearly 25 historic World War II vintage

aircraft are on display until Sunday. Sanderlin visited with other

men who played on Maury High football teams before joining the war

effort.

From left, Dick Millan, George Hughes, Charles Sanderlin, Ted

Bacalis and Leo Martone share football and war.

The Virginian-Pilot

Dick Millan, third from left, played tackle for Maury High in 1942.

He was one of 10 players who signed up for the Army Air Corps after