Vintage plane lifts vet's spirit to sky

GEORGETOWN, Texas (KXAN) - When Stanley Dale got back from a 13-month overseas hitch with the U.S. Marine corps at the end of World War II, he didn't spend a lot of time and energy dwelling on his duties on board a B-25 bomber in the south Pacific.

"He just never talked about it," said Dale's son, Alan Dale. "He went to work in the morning; he came home at night; that was it."

"He was like a lot of people from the World War II generation that, you know, did their duty and came home and then worked," agreed Tony Dale, Alan's son and Stanley's grandson.

But if the World War II vet didn't have much to say to his son, things changed when young Tony started growing up. When the boy was in middle school, his grandfather brought out his old Marine aviation log book and a box of medals. He knew Tony was interested in such things and maybe he had begun to realize that if he didn't start talking, some history would eventually vanish.

"Being in aviation back during World War II was a lot different that it is today," Tony Dale said, raising one hand a foot or two above the other. "You know, he would say sometimes, they'd come back from missions and they'd have mud on their face because there would be one plane bombing at this level and another plane down here. And the bombs would explode and they'd get dirt and mud on their faces from their own fellow planes' bombs hitting."

Altogether, Stanley Dale served as the turret gunner on thirty bombing missions over Japanese held territory in the south Pacific during 1945.

"They had one mission where one of their engines caught on fire when they were coming back from bombing some Japanese territory," Tony Dale recalled. "You know, there's two engines, fortunately. But he said they weren't scared when they were up there but when they landed they realized that, you know, that that was a pretty scary situation."

Stanley Dale died in 1998 at the age of 76. But the family had a framed poster of a B-25 with a picture of Dale in the house. A friend with connections at the Commemorative Air Force saw it and suggested that Dale's son and grandson take a ride on the Devil Dog . That's a B-25 that saw action in the Second World War, and went on to a distinguished career traveling from air show to air show with the CAF, teaching history.

In 2009, though, one of it's two engines failed on a flight home from an Oshkosh, Wisconsin, air show. The crew returned the Devil Dog to Oskosh, removed the bad engine and shipped it home to Georgetown, Texas, for some expensive rebuilding. The Devil Dog Squadron , as the plane's caretakers are known, raised $35,000 in less than two months to get the Dog back in the sky.

"We'll go to air shows," said squadron president Beth Jenkins at the time. "We'll give rides and people can experience what a B-25 flies like and let these people know what our fathers and grandfathers did for the freedoms we have today.

Most of these boys were 18, 19, 20 years old and they were out there fighting a war for our freedoms. And, you know, they're now in their 80s and they're dying daily and we're going to lose this history."

The two younger Dales also served in the military, Alan in the navy and Tony in the army. When they showed up at the Georgetown airport to hop a ride on the Devil Dog to Temple, they brought along that log book and box of medals.

"This is his Distinguished Flying Cross," said Tony Dale as he peered in the box, "and here's his flight log.

Dale opens the book and flips through some pages.

"On May 5th, 1945, he flew over Tabera Air Field, which is a Japanese Zero base in the south Pacific near Rabaul," he said. "So that was 66 years and one day from today. So that is a really amazing coincidence."

The two men climb up through a rear hatch in the Devil Dog and strap their bodies to their seats just like Stanley did during the war. The plane's engines cough up some smoke and come to life. The Devil Dog ambles down the runway and lifts into the blue spring sky. At altitude, the grandson removes his seat harness and moves into a side gunner's chair. He grasps the handles of a huge machine gun. His father takes a picture. Both grin.

"He's, you know, probably up there laughing because we're doing this," Alan Dale said of his father. "You know, he probably thinks we're crazy, I don't know."

Tears well up in both men's eyes. Back on the ground, they embrace briefly, like the man who went before them, having done their duty.