Читать книгу Flight of the Forgotten - Mark A. Vance - Страница 5

August, 1959, Washington, Indiana

I was three years old and totally immersed in pushing a toy wooden airplane across the floor of my grandparent’s living room at breakneck speed. Propelling the tiny craft along, I remember staring in fascination at its U.S. Air Force markings and watching the pilot’s head spin around and around as I made the wheels turn faster and faster. Nearby, several grown-ups were talking about someone they all called Buster, and the name caught my attention as I sped the toy airplane across the carpet. From what I could gather from their conversation, Buster was an uncle of mine who had died in an airplane crash and all the grown-ups were very sad that day as they talked about him. None of them seemed to know what had caused his airplane to crash.

As I continued pushing the toy airplane faster and faster, trying to make the pilot’s head spin that much faster in response, I remember hearing another voice that day too, a very different one. That very special voice spoke to me quite calmly and deliberately. The man behind it talked about the absolute necessity of being careful with all airplanes and the sad consequences if one ever came apart on me. I remember that he told me his name was Buster and that he was going to be with me all of my life.

Present Day

Thirty-five years later, I was flying a routine trip to the Chicago O’Hare Airport as a Boeing 737-300 captain, when my first officer mentioned he was planning a trip to England in the near future with his wife and kids. He said his wife was from England and that he went back there with her fairly often to visit her family.

On the one in a million chance that anything would come of it, I asked him if he had ever heard of a place called Norwich, England, telling him that an uncle of mine had been stationed near there during the war. He immediately replied that his father had also been stationed near there during the war at a place called Shipdham. The word went off like an alarm bell inside my head, as I quickly asked him what his father had done in the war.

“Oh, he was a B-24 pilot.” my first officer said casually.

“44th Bomb Group?” I asked immediately.

“Yes.” he replied.

“What squadron was he in?”

“65th I think.”

“There wasn’t a 65th. Could it have been the 66th?” I asked, eagerly.

“I don’t know, but I’ll call him when we get in and ask.” he offered.

“Well, just in case, here are a few names to ask him about.” I said, hopefully, jotting down several names of my Uncle Buster’s fellow crew members, beginning with the pilot, Lt. Jack Ketchum.

I’ll never forget how excited my first officer was a short time later to report that his father not only knew Jack Ketchum and the others, but under that one in a million chance had even been billeted with them in England. Was it a coincidence that the two of us would fly together decades later and happen to discuss it? Was it a coincidence that his father didn’t know the Jack Ketchum crew had all been lost? Not likely. I knew that Buster was stirring things up again, and it was up to me to find out why. As a professional pilot, I knew there was always an explanation for why an airplane went down. My lost uncle was back, coaxing me ever so gently to find and reveal the truth.