Tonight, I'm sitting at the Internet hookup at LAX, waiting for an airplane to deliver me, my wife and stepson to a funeral. My wife's father has died. It wasn't unexpected. He had Parkinson's, and in June the doctor gave him "one day to six months" of life.
His name was James Bell. He was 83. A member of the Greatest Generation. Before America entered World War II, he was training with the RAF. Pearl Harbor brought him back home where he trained to be a pilot with the U.S. Army Air Force. Then, back to England.
And then, 25 required missions over Germany and France in a B-24 Liberator called Ice Cold Katie. Twenty-five missions and then home. Planes blew up, flamed out, spiraled to earth all around him. Other B-24s and B-17s named "Ice Cold Katie" never returned. His B-24 collected a lot of bullet and flak holes, but it never took the big hit. Not one crewman was ever seriously wounded.
Then, when his 25 missions were up, my father-in-law volunteered for 5 more. And then, in January 1944, he headed to the Pacific Theater where he trained black pilots to take on the Rising Sun. He didn't return to his home in Oregon until late 1946, the year I was born. He hadn't seen the States in four years.
Getting him to talk about his experiences was never easy. Once, a decade ago, my wife and I learned that his crew had produced a type-written, 15-copy history of Ice Cold Katie, with brief summaries of all 30 missions. At the end were several testimonials from crewmen. James Bell was their roundtrip ticket. "We knew we would be safe with him."
They came home, and he came home. For 40 years, he was a dentist.
You wouldn't mistake James Bell on the street for a genuine war hero. He stood barely 5'5". He wasn't given to macho talk. A couple of years ago, on one of those rare occasions when he would let me catch a glimpse of his past, we talked a little about his experiences, and he said, "War makes no allowances for fools."
I miss him already.