Marshall Fletcher
Grants, NM

Thank you for making a 60-year old dream of mine come true. I have been in love with the B-17 Flying Fortress since I was eight years old and saw the first picture of one. I was eight when Pearl Harbor was attacked. The attack was engraved into my memory so well that it is still as real to me today as it was on December 7, 1941. I can still repeat President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s declaration of war, word for word.

As a child, I always dreamed of being a pilot and flying the B-17. However, I was too young for WWII and by the time I was fifteen, I had to start wearing glasses, so that shot down my dream of being a pilot.

I did serve in the Korean War with the 692^nd Field Artillery Battalion, which was the 280mm Atomic Cannon named BIG IKE.

I received my Aluminum Overcast Flying Jacket, which is my ultimate pride and joy. It fits perfect and I will treasure it for the rest of my life. I also received the extra pictures of the B-17 which as so nice of you to send. Thank you very much. I am having them professionally framed and will proudly display them in my home. I am also giving some of the pictures to close friends of mine who actually flew on the B-17 in combat. One of my friends that has fifty hours of combat flying in the B-17, is especially proud of the set of pictures I gave him.

I thank you for two of the happiest days of my life. When I walked into that flight room for my flight on the B-17, a beautiful lady greeted me at the door, gave me a cup of coffee and said to me, “Welcome to your flight. Come in, make yourself at home and have a good time.” Glenn Miller was playing “In the Mood” over a stereo system and I thought I was in paradise.

Please tell the pilots that flew the B-17 in Albuquerque, NM on March 14, 2001, that they are the most perfect pilots that I have ever flown with. Their three-point landing was the most perfect landing I have ever experienced. I was expecting to feel the touchdown and hear the tires squeal, etc. However, I never even knew we had landed until the pilot’s had turned the plane around and shut off the engines in front of the terminal. These pilots were absolutely the best of the best and they treated me very nice.

I have been flying since I was eleven and have put several hours in Admiral Bird’s Ford Tri-Motor and also the Pan American Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, “The Clipper Golden Eagle.”

Your flight, however, was my greatest thrill. I never dreamed I would get to fly on what I think is the greatest plane ever built; the B-17 Aluminum Overcast.

Again, thanks to all of you in the EAA. You are the nicest people I have ever met.

Thanks for keeping history alive.