As published in the White River Current - Thursday December 5, 2013
It
was a hot day in the middle of summer.
My mother and I were doing something outside in the back yard of the
Rock House on Red Lane where we lived. I
remember it vividly. I can even close my
eyes and see it. The sound reached us
first, then we saw this huge, four engine airplane approaching from the south
directly toward our house. It was low, I
mean really low, and it was really loud and really large as it passed directly
over us, proceeding north about a mile, then turning west. It was all over in a manner of seconds and the
plane, which I recognized from photos as a B-24 bomber, was soon out of sight,
taking the sound with it. An incident
from my childhood that I have never forgotten.
A boyhood friend, Charles Hudson, also witnessed the unusual event and
wrote about it several years later. His
remembrance is included in his collection entitled “The Prose, Poetry and
Pitiful Projects of a Primitive Poet (Copyright, 1996). I have received permission to include
Charles’ memory in this article. He
entitled it “The Liberator.” ‘Twas in the middle of the day, and in the
middle of the summer, under the hot summer sun; and there were scattered
clouds, and it was 1943, and nothing much exciting ever happened in Calico Rock
(population 1000) this time of year. Dad
and I were rebuilding a stretch of fence to keep old Sybil from escaping her
own lush pasture to graze in Jess Merchant’s peanut patch, or to work the
meager fare of the Edington Road glade rocks.
We’d set two sturdy new cedar fence posts, and we’d spliced the “bob”
wire, and stretched it with a bar, and were busy stapling it to the posts
when---we suddenly realized we were hearing a hum, and a moan and a throbbing
drone, growing louder and louder in our consciousness. We jumped upon the bank, and we looked toward
town, and there we saw it: that great
huge B-24 “Liberator” bomber settling down over town two miles away and on a
bearing straight for our house. Dad said
excitedly: “Run tell the others. It must be Neill!” A good bet, I’d say, since my brother was the
only B-24 pilot from Izard County—and maybe even from all of north central
Arkansas. I “lit out,” yelling at the
top of my lungs, but I could see that I was losing the race; the plane would
beat me to the house by far. And what chance
did an adolescent voice have against those four great 1200 horsepower Pratt and
Whitney, Twin Wasp, air-cooled radial engines, close enough to command the
attention of every human, and probably every critter in the area? But I could see that my mother and my brother
and sisters were enjoying their panic, and were waving and jumping around in
the yard. I guess we made it pretty easy
if Neill looked down to see if he could see anyone. I stood there in the middle of the pasture,
and watched that big beautiful shiny dark green airplane, with the vivid red
and yellow and white and blue markings and lettering, fly ever so low around
the house and turn back to the northwest to pick up whatever their planned
route was for that day. I watched that
great bird gain altitude and become smaller by the second, until it was a speck
in the sky; and I could barely hear that fading doppler sound. And then I could no longer see it or hear it
at all; and I could barely believe that it had happened. The excitement and the high that I experienced
that day kept me from sleeping much that night, and it kept me from having much
interest in repairing fences, or doing my chores, or much of anything else for
a while. And it still stands out as one
of the most vivid memories of my life.
‘Twas in the middle of the day; and in the middle of the summer; and in
the middle of a war; and in the middle of my boyhood. Liberated!
Charles spent the largest past of his life in California where he
died a few years ago. He was my high
school classmate. I’ll have more to say
about the Hudson family in a forthcoming article. My next column will be in the Christmas issue
of the Current, the last issue of the year.
See you in two weeks.
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