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The walls shimmied as the plane gained speed, gathering momentum like an Olympic track star headed for the first hurdle. Once launched, it was surprisingly smooth as we headed out for a short flight around the Big House – Michigan’s stadium of worship to all things football-related – and my chance to feel closer to my father, who had died seven years earlier.
I was always afraid I wouldn’t survive the emotional fallout of his death: I had a serious case of hero worship.
Dad never sweated the small stuff. Whatever clothes he put on in the morning did active duty all day, whether it was changing oil in the car or hitting a few balls at the par 3. Informed that my sister had wrecked the family car, he asked only, “Is she okay?” I remember him telling me in my teens: “I can’t leave you money when I die, but I will leave you an education.”
He died suddenly, two months shy of his 87th birthday. People say grief gets easier with time, but they don’t mention how often it reappears.
As time passed, I was afraid my dad was slipping away from me. It was getting harder to remember his voice. Places where I used to see him were gone, the family home sold when mom needed more help. The worst moments are when I think of things we never got to share. “They are going to invent a phone small enough to fit in your ear,” he exclaimed one day, the newspaper open on the recliner on which he liked to stretch out. I never got to marvel over a smartphone with him.
Like many men during the Second World War, my father volunteered to fight for his country. Although a Canadian, he became a radio operator for Britain’s Royal Air Force Lancaster bombers. My dad had a statistically depressing 16-per-cent chance of surviving 30 missions. He made 25 before the victory in Europe. “I got lucky, the war ended before I did,” he told me, tapping the kitchen table with his index finger, the nail blackened by frostbite. He never talked about those years when I was a kid. As he aged he started sharing his war experiences with his grandsons, his blue eyes solemn behind glasses he could never keep clean, his baby-fine hair swept back in a dignified combover.
Knowing how significant those times were to my father, I wondered if a flight in a similar plane would make me feel closer to him. I found out that the Yankee Air Museum near Ann Arbor, Mich., offers passenger flights in vintage B-17s, and 70 years after my dad last flew in a bomber I jumped at the opportunity.
A museum volunteer shepherded me and seven others to the side door of a brick hangar, where several grey-haired gentlemen scurried around a silver aircraft in brown aviator jumpsuits. Once the preflight checks were completed, the plane was pulled to the runway by a small tractor. The pilots and mechanical staff started manually rotating the propellers, forming a line as one after another pushed the blades around until the engine oil had circulated.
This dance of prop preparedness made me think how much riskier flying had been in my dad’s era. He would describe the dozens of Lancasters lined up for takeoff, so full of fuel they couldn’t land again until they’d used much of it. Some were so heavy they wouldn’t make it into the air, crashing shortly after takeoff. “The other planes didn’t stop, they just kept taking off over the burning planes,” dad said, his leg tucked under him on the kitchen chair. He spoke without emotion, but I think it had to affect him deeply.
The B-17’s bombs had been removed, but the seats were original. Two of our group scrambled into the gunner’s seat. It was only after I sat down that I realized I was in the radio operator’s seat. Shivers slid down my back. Once in the air, everyone scurried to explore every inch of the plane. With a time limit of 29 minutes, there was no time to lose in our quest to look out every window, take selfies in the gunner’s seat and watch the pilots in action. I imagined my dad would have been just as busy on his flights, albeit on different tasks. One night he was busy sending messages when he felt a draft and saw the gunner walk by with a parachute on. “What’s going on?” he asked. “We are getting ready to abandon the plane, it has problems,” the gunner said. I can’t remember if my dad put on his parachute, but I recall him leaning back in his chair, his omnipresent grin missing, as he told me the plane limped back to England and the parachutes stayed dry.
My dad wasn’t one of the more than 42,000 Canadians who died in the war, a sacrifice I find hard to fathom. But I realize now what it cost him to give me the gift of freedom before I was even born.
The plane dropped gently toward the ground, the wheels squeaking as they found the runway. After a short taxi, the door swung open. Everyone seemed reluctant to leave, caught up in the spell of a time long ago. I followed them down the stairs, back to a life without dad. He didn’t seem as far away as he had 30 minutes earlier.
Carol Patterson lives in Calgary.