The Final Approach

His B-17 bomber was shot full of gaping holes. Smoke billowed out of the three remaining working engines.  The fuselage was torn from exploding cannon shells. His windscreen was shot up and the constant cold wind blowing in burned his face with frost bite.  He looked down at the English Channel, knowing its cold waters would be an instant death.  In the back of the plane, his men were battered and bleeding.

And it was just Monday.

He feathered the number one engine, trying to reduce the drag of the props. A sergeant in the back threw what loose items he could find to lighten their load.  They had left their bombs in Germany.  The Germans sent Me 262 jet fighters after them in revenge.  The Germans also had won the day. Almost.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

He could see the white cliffs of Dover ahead.  The plane was steadily losing altitude, but he knew they’d make it to land.  The question was now, “Where would he land?”

The wheel shook as he fought the giant beast, trying to keep it airborne. The B-17 was much easier to fly than the B-24, the Americans other heavy bomber in Europe.  He had flown this particular plane 33 missions.  Today was the day his (and the plane’s) luck ran out. If there was any comfort, though, it was that the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress could take a lick and still keep flying. He looked around the cockpit. The radio was busted, so he couldn’t call for help.  The Royal Air Force was going to be surprised to see them today. He just hope they didn’t shoot him down.  He lined up for the final approach.

Suddenly, a second engine started to sputter and then died.  The once sluggish bomber began to drop even faster.  He called back to the back, “HANG ON.”

The loud noise woke Col. Fred Salsen from his nap.

“Sorry Grandpa.  I know you don’t like loud noises.”  The Colonel’s great grandson was playing “Call of Duty.”  The Colonel loathed the video game, “Once you’ve tasted the real thing, you don’t want to play it as a game.”   He pressed the button on his recliner which tipped up and into the waiting arms of his walker.  His back still hurt from the crash.  The crash that had won him the Distinguished Flying Cross.  “Best piece of flying in the war, ” General Eisenhower had called it. He had been at that R.A.F. base that day.  He personally commended the Colonel in the hospital.

He had voted for Ike twice. The man was a great leader of men, the Colonel told everyone.  The Colonel wasn’t so bad himself.  The confidence he had gained during the war had turned a small-town Mississippi boy into an international businessman.  He had amassed a small fortune over the years.

And then one day in 1970, he gave it all away.

He called it his second crash.  “Too much luxury makes you weak.” He then reinvented himself and founded a new business.  A second fortune quickly came. He spend much of that helping wounded veterans recover from their mental and physical wounds.

“Dad, it’s almost time.”

The four generations of Salsen men drove down to the local airport.  “What’s this all about, the Colonel asked?”

“You’ll see Dad,” his son helped his 90-year-old father into the private jet.

After a long flight over the Atlantic, the Gulfstream V landed at the little airport near the Dover Cliffs.  The door of the jet opened and the old man saw a band at the foot of the stairs playing Glenn Miller tunes.  “What’s this all about?”

It only took a moment to find out.  A roar drowned out the band as a B-17 Flying Fortress buzzed the field.  It banked, dropped its flapped and landing gear and made a perfect landing right in front of them.  The plane rolled slowly to a stop — IT WAS MARKED JUST LIKE HIS OLD PLANE.”

The old man dropped to his knees when he saw it. And on the side were the names of all of his crew who had died on that mission.

“Happy Birthday, Dad.  It’s headed to the Smithsonian as a donation in your crews’ memory.”

Nearly 70 years shaved off the old man instantly as he walked up to the plane. He rubbed his hand against its nose and openly wept.  And then, the surviving members of his crew got out of waiting cars.  During the mini-reunion, the band struck up the Star Spangled Banner.  Time melted on that tiny airfield in England. And as the age-battered men remembered that fateful day in 1945, a hero made a perfect final approach and landed one last time.