Taking a trip back

Stefanie Frith

Blinking back tears, Chester Rencevicz of Laguna Hills watched in

amazement as two vintage World War II bomber planes roared into John

Wayne Airport Sunday afternoon.

“I had family and friends in the war,” said Rencevicz, his voice

cracking through choked back tears. “I saw the planes come in in Seattle

and I used to work in an ... aircraft plant in the 1940s. Watching this

just brings tears to my eyes.”

The B-24 Liberator Bomber and the B-17 Flying Fortress arrived at the

Signature Flight Support Center at John Wayne at 3 p.m. and will be on

display until Wednesday when they depart for the rest of their “Wings of

Freedom” tour. The tour is sponsored by the nonprofit Collings Foundation

of Massachusetts.

The B-24 served in the Pacific Theater with the 43rd Bomb Group, 64th

Squadron. The nose art, “The Dragon and his Tail,” is considered one of

the best examples of art painted on an American aircraft by crew members

who viewed them as good luck talismans. The B-24 is also the only one

left in the world today.

The B-17 “Nine-O-Nine,” which flew in the 8th Airforce European

Theater and completed 140 missions with the 91st Bomb Group, never lost a

crew member.

A few hundred people were on hand Sunday afternoon to tour the planes

and to take flights. Among them was Bud Kingsbury of La Mirada, a World

War II veteran who attends aircraft events to help educate the public.

Kingsbury was a B-17 pilot who once swam for 32 straight hours when his

plane crashed into the Mediterranean Sea just off the coast of Italy in

1943.

“First, one engine went out ... then the second and then the whole

left wing was on fire,” said Kingsbury, watching the hundreds of people

line up to see the planes. “We crashed and I swam all night ... 21 miles.

The others didn’t make it. I was saved by three Italian ladies ... but

ended up in an imprisonment camp for 21 months. I still think of my crew

every day and it used to be hard to talk about. But now I come here and

talk to people. It’s important to share this.”

Rig and Claire Braga of Orange also make it a point to attend as many

of the bomber plane landings as possible because Rig Braga was a B-17

co-pilot in the war. The couple recently built a model of a B-17 that

will soon be on display at the Ultimate Sacrifice Memorial being built in

Ohio.

“My husband took a flight in the B-17 that is here today when it was

in [another location] years back,” Claire Braga said. “It was the first

time in 50 years that he had been in one and he cried when he sat in the

seat. He was just in tears.”

Nearby at the B-17, Sarah Mertan, 12, awaited her turn to take a seat

in the bomber.

“It looks really neat,” said Sarah, waiting with her brother, Daniel,

5, and her father, Alan, of Huntington Beach. “We haven’t learned about

this yet in school. We aren’t to World War II yet.”

Roy Test, a former B-17 co-pilot who travels in his motor home to the

different landing sites to hand out information about the planes as part

of the B-17 Combat Crewman and Wingmen group, said that even through

school, there is no way children can understand the true meaning of what

the war was like without seeing the planes in person and speaking to

those who went through it.

“When I was flying in these planes, we were going up with 500 to 1500

of them, not just a couple like here,” Test said, proudly sporting his

old uniform. “Nostalgia is so great. And when they come in, it’s such a

powerful sound and sight.”FYI

For more information on tours, flights and the bomber planes exhibit,

call (949) 930-4813.