Wings Over Wiscasset 2013

FG-1D Corsair, "Whistling Death," with the Milky Way in the background, from Texas Flying Legends Museum. Courtesy of Dave Cleaveland, Maine Imaging www.maineimaging.com

SUSAN JOHNS, Staff Reporter

“Wings Over Wiscasset” got the blue-sky day organizers had been hoping for.

“I'm excited, and very excited to see that everyone who had to show up and do their part showed up,” Wiscasset Municipal Airport manager Ervin Deck said. “It's all coming together great.” About 4,200 people turned out for "Wings," event producer Dennis St. Pierre said August 7.

For 39 youth campers from the Wiscasset Parks and Recreation Department, hands-on activities with Mad Science of Maine culminated days of lead-up with enrichment activities about air flight, camp director Jay Reith said.

Area youth camps, young families and veterans helped make up the crowd of hundreds for the first wave of activities before the night's concert, airshow and fireworks.

“It's cool to see all the planes,” Alannah Bryer, 9, of Wiscasset, said. She was there with brothers Ian, 15, and Corbin,19 months, and parents Darrell and Aimee Bryer.

Ian Bryer enjoyed looking at the antique autos. “That Porsche 911 over there is pretty sweet,” he said.

Wiscasset's Stephen Jarrett Sr., representing American Legion District 6 and Post 34 in his native St. George, was volunteering with fellow veterans.

“This is one of the greatest things that could happen in this area,” said Jarrett, who served in Vietnam on the aircraft carrier Enterprise. “It's time well spent, just thinking of those veterans that sacrificed so much, some that sacrificed their lives. Let's hope people are thinking of them today,” Jarrett said.

Signs on Route 1 near Route 144 warned of possible traffic impacts Tuesday; no tie-ups or slow downs were known to have occurred due to the event in its first several hours. Volunteers at the corner of Route 144 and Chewonki Road directed event-goers to parking.

U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, arrived in the afternoon and met for an hour with representatives of a business tenant at the airport, Peregrine Turbine Technologies. He wanted to hear about the company's very exciting work in energy and discuss how he might be able to help, he said afterward.

Three King grandchildren were also at the airport Tuesday. “Wings” was giving people an opportunity to enjoy a beautiful day in Maine, he said.

Radio-control flying club members Ted Poirier of Dayton and Toby Guimond of East Waterboro said the event was giving them a chance to talk with pilots and get an up-close look at planes they will build models of.

The two men also got to speak with King as he joined the crowd. Poirier asked him how things were going in the Senate.

“I'm having a good time. A little frustrating. It's a hell of a challenge,” King told him.

At a kickoff for sponsors and guests Monday night, representatives of non-profits thanked “Wings” organizers for choosing to have donations collected Tuesday for their causes.

“This is beyond our wildest dreams,” said Bill Legere, co-founder of the Not Here Justice in Action Network aimed at fighting human trafficking and gender inequality. “It's a real honor ...,” he said.

Just over $4,500 was collected at “Wings” for the nonprofits to share, said Tom Boudin of Edgecomb, the volunteer who tallied the donations. An anonymous donor agreed to match the donations, which would bring the total to $9,000.

Susan Johns can be reached at 207-844-4633 or susanjohns@wiscassetnewspaper.com

JOE GELARDEN, Executive Editor

When the blue Navy Corsair fighter plane with the gull wings sweeps over the tiny airport as part of the “Wings Over Wiscasset” air show, Hilary Heaton will look up and smile.

In fact, even a photo of the chunky plane triggers more than a smile. You could say it is a wide grin.

Many Midcoast residents know the 85-year-old with the twinkling eyes and the ready quip as the former owner of one of the area’s most popular waterfront restaurants, East Boothbay’s Lobsterman’s Wharf.

But only a handful of friends know that 70 years ago, he was a 15-year-old runaway who fibbed about his age and joined the U.S. Marines.

It was in the first months of World War II that Heaton, as a longtime gun enthusiast, was sent to ordinance school and trained as an armorer, learning how to maintain and service the powerful machine guns mounted on the war birds’ wings.

In months, he was sent to the South Pacific, assigned to VMF 111, one of the Marine’s first flying units. They were based on a tiny atoll in the Gilbert Islands called Makin.

This was not the famed Marine “Black Sheep Squadron” featuring “ace” pilots whose exploits grabbed the headlines. He said his unit was the kind of second string; they were assigned to attack and harass the Japanese held islands that had been bypassed by the U.S. forces.

The Corsair fighters were ordered by the Navy, but  assigned to the Marines when the Navy was reluctant to station them on carriers.

They were planes designed around an engine, the 2,000-plus horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-2800, an 18-cylinder supercharged radial powerhouse.

The mighty engine could pull that plane to over 400 mph in a straight line, and, in a dive, some pilots were able to crack the 500 mph barrier. Corsairs were fast and tough, armed with six .50 caliber machine guns.

Heaton’s unit figured how to turn the fighter into a dive-bomber. “We put two 500-pound bombs on the wings and later a 1,000-pound bomb under the fuselage.”

Later, they began to augment that payload with 2 and 4 inch rockets.

The Corsairs were also fitted with movie cameras, but because his unit was targeting ground installations, they removed the cameras.

“We used to put bottles of Pepsi in the empty camera compartment during flights to chill them, but some of the bottles broke and spilled cola and glass all over the planes, so the officers told us to stop that,” he said.

VMF 111’s nickname was “Devil Dogs,” a name bestowed on the Marines by German soldiers in World War I. Their job was to mount low level attacks.

“Our pilots were crazy. Our commanding officer came back from one raid with palm tree branches wedged in his wings because he flew so low,” Heaton said.

“I wrote home and told my folks the pilots were crazy. That got me in trouble. They censored all our mail and one of the (censoring) officers came to me and asked me if I had an attitude,” he said.

After getting into a scrape with another Marine, Heaton said he landed in the brig. That led to a change of assignment. Guard duty.

After he got out, he and some pals, friends he met while in the brig, were assigned to help guard supplies as the whole island (Kwajalein) was turned into a staging area for the invasion of Iwo Jima.

“There was a mile-long line of supplies for the officer’s mess tents. There was canned fruit and other goodies. It was the first time we had seen ketchup for a while, and we appropriated cases of it for our friends,” he said.

“Guys would put ketchup bottles in their back pockets when they went to chow. You could say we were kind of getting even with the officers,” he said as that wide grin returned to his face.

As he sat in an air-conditioned office, Heaton showed off tiny photos he took during his time with the Corsairs. He told how he and his friends would work in the burning South Pacific sun and how they had to be careful when they picked up tools that had been lying in the torrid sands.

“The Corsair was a good work horse. They would fly day after day. We worked on them out in the open. Sometimes they would pull the engines out using a hoist hooked up to a tree, although many of the trees were gone after we took the islands.

“They were terribly rugged planes.”

JOE GELARDEN, Executive Editor

Under the snout of a snarling World War II fighter called the P-40 Warhawk, a group of veterans from the “Greatest Generaton” told a Wiscasset audience that their war ranged from terror to utter boredom.

Their war stories were a major highlight of the “Wings Over Wiscasset” air show and entertainment celebration held Tuesday, Aug. 6 at the town’s airport.

The vets’ audience included children, grandchildren and sometimes great-grandchildren, a host of flying enthusiasts and even total strangers.

And their tales kept the audience engaged.

Round Pond’s George Hanna, 88, was assigned to the USS Achenar, an attack cargo ship which participated in the Normandy landings in Europe, then was sent to the South Pacific to help out there.

On April 1, 1945, it was anchored near the Phillipine Islands as part of group of ships preparing for an invasion when it was attacked by a Japanese suicide pilot, a kamikaze.

Hanna said he heard the plane coming and turned around to watch it hit the side of his ship.

Ironically, Wiscasset’s Howard Cederlund, 88, watched Hanna’s ship as it was attacked.

He told the audience he a sailor on a nearby ship when he saw the suicide pilot slam his plane into Hanna’s ship.

“It was terrible,” Hanna said. “They turned the mess deck into a hospital and laid bodies out on the tables.” The official record says they lost five sailors and had nearly 50 wounded.

Don McKibben, 92, Topsham, was a fighter pilot who patrolled over the Normandy invasion looking for German aircraft that might attack the allied forces.

Enemy pilots stayed on the ground didn’t challenge the allied invasion so he flew back and forth for 13 hours and saw no opponents. It was boring, he said.

Former Master Sgt. James Sheppard, 88, South Portland grew up in New York City and was a trained and licensed aircraft mechanic. He joined the Army in hopes of being one of the first group of African American pilots, but was turned down.

“They said they needed mechanics more than they needed pilots,” he said.

He was part of the crew that kept the famed Tuskegee Airmen flying. That group provided air support for the American forces as they moved from North Africa up the Italian boot and kept the deadly German dive bombers called Stukas from attacking allied forces at the Anzio landing.

Ed Hendrickson, 92, Brewer, was a pilot of a carrier based dive bomber in the South Pacific.

While they dropped their bombs from 1,000 feet on the enemy, they had to fly 300 miles each way to reach their target and get back to home base.

The dive bombing missions “proved to be exciting at a time,” he said.

“You could see the enemy shells as then came towards the attacking planes. They looked like a grapefruit.”

“We were quite pleased when the (enemy) anti aircraft fire missed us,” he said.

George Jones, 89, Wiscasset was a radio operator on a B-25 medium bomber that was turned into a ground support aircraft.

He said some of his pilots flew so low that sometimes they came home with palm leaves stuck in their wings. “The B-25 was a happy plane but they were noisy,” he said.

Ed Dexter, 88, Waldoboro, was a navigator on a B-17 bomber that flew 32 missions over Europe.

“I didn’t want to be a bus driver,” he said referring to the pilots.

As the quartet of World War II fighters warmed up before they took off for a series of roaring passes over the crowd that including the moving “missing man” formation, Dexter, a retired engineer, said the loud sounds of the engines brought back memories.

“Just think what the sound of 100 planes with four engines sound like,” he said.

SUSAN JOHNS, Staff Reporter

The musical theater bug bit chiropractor Ron Bouffard of Boothbay Harbor back when he was a student at Lewiston Junior High School. The production was “The Yankee Doodle.”

Bouffard got the lead.

That same musical is the source of some of the patriotic songs “Wings Over Wiscasset” attendees will get to hear next Tuesday, August 6. The non-profit arts group Music Doing Good, including Bouffard as one of the singers, will be putting on its “Voices of Freedom” program.

“So it's sort of coming full circle,” Bouffard said of the connection between his theatrical debut and the upcoming concert.

Bouffard, a tenor, has performed at the Boothbay Playhouse, the Heartwood Regional Theater Company in Damariscotta, and the Chocolate Church in Bath.

He plans to sing in a “Lady Liberty” medley of circa 1920s songs at the “Wings” performance.

His work with Music Doing Good gives him an opportunity to perform with very talented people, Bouffard said.

Patriotic Broadway, rhythm and blues, classical and pop music will all be represented in Tuesday night's concert, Music Doing Good's executive and creative director David LaDuca said.

The concert will energize event-goers' patriotic spirit, LaDuca said.

“I think it will be a great, moving tribute,” Bouffard said.

The concert is set to run from 7:30 p.m. to 8:40 p.m. in Hangar 10, just before a fireworks show concludes “Wings.”

For another Music Doing Good singer, Dennis St. Pierre, Tuesday's performance and the day's other activities at the airport will culminate months of work as event producer of “Wings.”

“It's awesome,” St. Pierre said when asked how the final days of preparation were going. “It's crazy, but awesome.”

Music Doing Good's outreach includes after-school music programs, youth scholarships, gently used instruments for schools, the concerts and other programs to help bring music into people's lives.

For more information or to donate, go to www.musicdoinggood.org.

Susan Johns can be reached at 207-844-4633 or susanjohns@wiscassetnewspaper.com

SUSAN JOHNS, Staff Reporter

U.S. Senator and former Maine governor Angus King plans to attend the “Wings Over Wiscasset” event at the town's airport August 6, Wiscasset Town Manager Laurie Smith said July 19.

Smith had just received word from King's office about the visit. He is expected to arrive at the event around 2 p.m., Smith said.

“The Wings Over Wiscasset Committee and the town are very excited,” Smith said in a telephone interview.

“Senator King has always been very supportive of people in Wiscasset and the Midcoast region, and we're hoping we can show him the community support for our new event and highlight what Wiscasset has to offer.”

The “WOW” Committee hopes to draw about 10,000 people to “Wings.”

The first-time event is set to feature a concert, fireworks, presentations on history and science, and the Texas Flying Legends Museum Warbird planes, which summer at the Wiscasset Municipal Airport. It's also a fundraiser for scholarships for the town's recreation department programs and other causes.

Admission to "Wings" is free. Gates open at 9 a.m. For more information, visit www.wingsoverwiscasset.org.

Susan Johns can be reached at 207-844-4633 or susanjohns@wiscassetnewspaper.com

SUSAN JOHNS, Staff Reporter

The pilots of the Maine Aeronautics Association do more than help one another, President Lisa Reece said. Their efforts also support other nonprofits, including ones for veterans and youth.

The group helps with fly-ins, where pilots give rides and tell about their planes; supports ACE Camp, a summer aviation camp for teens; and gives to both the Wounded Warrior Project and Maine Adaptive Sports and Recreation (formerly Maine Handicapped Skiing), which also serves veterans, Reece said.

“We really strive to make ourselves part of the community,” Reece said.

The association is one of three nonprofits for which donations will be collected at “Wings Over Wiscasset,” August 6 at the Wiscasset Municipal Airport.

Reece is on the committee planning “Wings.” In addition to the free, daylong event's other goals, she hopes it will help spread interest in the association. The group currently has about 250 members across the state, she said.

For more, visit www.maineaeronautics.org.

Susan Johns can be reached at 207-844-4633 or susanjohns@wiscassetnewspaper.com