Fly-in gives WWII pilot another chance in the sky

Hasan Karim
Marion Star
Charles Allen sits inside his Delaware home on Tuesday. Turning 100 in November, the World War II aviator said he would like to be in the cockpit one last time.

DELAWARE - Charles Allen doesn't remember the last time he rode in a Ford Tri-Motor. 

"It was so long ago, I must of been around 12 years old," the former pilot recalled. "It's almost as old as me."

Growing up on a farm in Oklahoma during the Great Depression, Allen remembers being fascinated by the planes passing overhead.

"I would make my own airplanes out of blocks of wood and tin," he recalled. "I always wanted to fly, ever since I was a child."

Though the 99-year-old took a flight to Long Island to see his granddaughter not too long ago, he said it's a different feeling. 

"You don't often get a chance to ride this old thing," the former pilot said. "It feels different, it's more personal."

Yearning to pilot one last time, Allen got the second best thing.

He received a phone call asking if he wanted to travel through Marion airspace in the vintage plane as the airport got ready for its yearly event. 

The fourth annual Wings and Wheels Fly-In/Drive-In was scheduled to kick off on Saturday. 

Residing in a retirement community in neighboring Delaware, he took them up on their offer.

George Kasotis, a longtime restaurateur in Marion, saw Allen's name in an edition of the Columbus Dispatch. Approaching 100, Allen shared with the Columbus reporter his days as an aviator. 

Flipping through the newspaper, the longtime Marion resident wanted to get Allen up in the air again. 

"I decided to give him a call to see if he wanted to come up," Kasotis said. "His health is pretty good. He still drives and plays poker."

Dan Hempy, the director of the fly-in thought it was a great idea. He said every year they search for old World War II aviators to attend the event. 

"They are becoming hard to find now-a-days," Hempy said. "We want to give them one last ride in an old war bird."

Given the option to either soar the skies in a military transport aircraft, called a C-47 Skytrain, or take a spin in the old Tri-Motor, the veteran of two wars chose the latter. 

A lifelong passion

Allen remembers always wanting to fly. As a child, planes had zipped by his family farm in the clear Oklahoma skies, landing on a small airfield close by. 

So in the summer of 1941 as the United States prepared for war, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps.

"Everyone was joining those days," Allen said, eyes closed as the memories crept into his mind on Tuesday. 

He didn't know that he would be surrounded by aircraft in the decades to come and would participate in bombing missions across the globe. 

"I've been retired for so long you get use to not flying anymore," he said. 

Charles Allen points to one of the medals that he earned during his 28 years as a military pilot.

Flying over Europe

As a young man, Allen found himself stationed in Italy where he served as a B-24 bomber co-pilot on 14 missions in Europe.

He remembers riding the hunk of metal across the Adriatic Sea to bomb targets in Romania. It was hot and landing one of those planes on water was not a safe bet. 

On his seventh mission, he recalls learning that firsthand as the plane ran out of fuel. The crew of 10 —plus a photographer— had to bailout, parachuting onto a mountain in former Yugoslavia. 

Behind enemy lines, Allen remembers hiding his parachute, hoping to evade capture as German troops had entrenched themselves in the country.

"We had been briefed before that the partisans (communist fighters allied with Great Britain during the war) would most likely get us home," he recalled. 

The group of stranded Americans were eventually found by a young man, with a rifle slung across his shoulder and a hammer and sickle pinned to his cap.

That chance encounter started a 42-day trek across the Yugoslav countryside as the men made their way towards a grassy field, large enough for aircraft to land. 

Allen remembered bumping into some villagers who spoke English. They had spent time in the United States before the war broke out. 

"They would hand us letters to send back," Allen recalled. "I remember the only German I saw was a captured soldier. They held him at an old monastery."

Eventually, Allen made it onto a plane heading back to Italy with 50 other soldiers who found themselves stranded in Yugoslavia. 

"We all made it back," he said with a smile on his face. 

The bomber pilot would fly seven more times over the Italian coast before a piece of shrapnel made its way into his shoulder, landing him in a military hospital. 

Continuing on 

After the war, he stayed in the military where he was eventually assigned to the Strategic Air Command, which operated the nation’s nuclear strike forces as the Cold War escalated.

Allen, by then a lieutenant colonel, eventually made his way to Columbus where he was stationed at Lockbourne Air Force Base (now Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base) south of the city in 1959.

He returned to combat in Vietnam, flying B-52 bombers, before eventually retiring in 1971 and settling down in the Columbus area with his wife Helen, who passed away in 2001. 

Charles Allen looks at some of his old medals on Tuesday. The 99-year-old will make the trip to Marion on Saturday, flying in an old Ford Tri-Motor.

Going up again 

As Allen prepared for his weekend flight, he felt excited. 

"I plan to get there sometime in the afternoon," the old pilot said on Tuesday. 

But, as he turns a century old on Nov. 21, he wants to sit behind the wheel again. 

"For my birthday, I'll take off and land one last time," he said.  

HKarim@nncogannett.com

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