[Jeff Higgins]

My mom is 75 years young and still working here at Boeing, at the Plant II facility in Seattle. I had some business down there about a month ago, so I took her to lunch. We stopped in the old final assembly building on the way back. In it is stored a B17 and a B29 being restored by volunteers. She started crying as we were poking around on the B17.

Several years ago, there was a big event at the Museum of Flight, right accross the street from Plant II. A B17, B24, and B29 flew over in formation. She cried then, too. She asked me if I could possibly imagine what it must have been like to see hundreds in formation flying overhead. To hear them for an hour before you could see them, even in broad daylight.

My mom was a young girl growing up in Germany, in the small farming town of Warburg, during WWII. It's just outside of Kassel, home at the time of a large ball bearing factory. Early in the war, they would all run to their basements in the middle of the night as the air raid sirens wailed. Later, when the bombers came in broad daylight, and they realized Warburg would never be a target, they would sit on the roof and watch them bomb Kassel. How surreal. I just could not imagine what that would have been like.

My mom is a remarkable woman. She tells me the happiest day of her life (next to marrying my dad) was the day the Allies rolled through Warburg. They were giving the kids rides in their Jeeps, trucks, and tanks. My mom was a rather good looking young lady, with braided blond hair down to her... legs. She had no trouble getting a ride on a tank. Anyway, she sure has some stories to tell about those days. Her all-time favorite airplane is the B17; she just can't look at one without crying.