Two B-29 Bomber Crewman Meet in Idaho Falls

Marshall Dullum's crew in Korea. Marshall is front row, second from left.

Dean's crew, India. 1944-45.

Marshall and Dean and a model of the B-29. Marshall commented that if he and Dean could find two more old B-29 crewmen, they could form a new crew.

On August 13, 2010, two bomber boys who flew in the B-29 Superfortress met each other for the first time in Idaho Falls. I have known Marshall Dullum for three or four years, but only recently found out about Dean . Marshall trained in bombers in WWII, but did not fly combat. He did, however, fly in the Berlin Airlift and in the United Nations peacekeeping action in the Middle East. He flew combat missions in a B-29 during the Korean War, near the end of the period when the 29 was used as a combat bomber. Dean flew in B-29s during WWII. He first trained crews in 1942 and 1943 in B-17s and B-24s, and was one of the first to train in the new B-29, which he says is the best of the three by far. Dean flew with the 20th Air Force in Asia. A flight engineer who had mechanical aptitude, he was responsible for keeping the mechanical components of the 29 working in flight. His crew "flew the Hump" over the Himalayas 25 times. The crew took off from a secret base in India, flew over the Himalayas--or, if the weather was good---through the Himalayas, threading its way between the jagged peaks. They landed at another secret base in China, and then took off to bomb Japanese-occupied areas in East Asia. Dean remembers that on a clear day you could navigate your way across the Himalayas by following the carcasses of crashed aircraft on the mountains below.

Book Review: HAP HALLORAN 'Hap's War'

I received Hap Halloran's 'Hap's War' today, along with the pictured card and two photos Hap annotated on the back. The top photo shows Hap getting inducted into the American Combat Airmen Hall of Fame in 2001. The bottom photo shows Hap with Enola Gay pilot Paul Tibbetts in Great Bend, Kansas, a few years back. Tibbetts passed away a little over a week ago.

Today in the mail I received my copy of Hap Halloran's 'Hap's War: The Incredible Survival Story of a POW Slated for Execution" by Ray 'Hap' Halloran with Chester Marshall. This book is a real piece of World War Two history. First of all, I cannot believe the incredible value of this large hardback book, which Hap sells himself out of his home in Menlo Park, California. The price, includiing shipping, must make this book the best buy in America, even if it were to come unsigned. However, Hap took the time to personally inscribe the book and also included two photographs of himself, one with Paul Tibbets, the Enola Gay pilot, and the other of himself after being inducted into the American Combat Hall of Fame in October of 2001. On top of that, he took the time to include a personalized card.

For those of you who have never heard of Hap Halloran, he is one of the most celebrated heroes of the Pacific War. He overcame incredible odds to survive as a Japanese prisoner of war after his B-29 Superfortress was shot down over Japan on January 27, 1945. His tale is one of torture, starvation, and ultimately, survival. It was Hap who was taken to the Tokyo Zoo and put on display in a cage as an example of what the terrible American invaders looked like. This was the low point of his life, according to him. What is more amazing is that this former POW has just returned from Japan, where he is an honored speaker about the effects of war and is an advocate for peaceful solutions to problems where possible.

Hap and Japanese survivors at the Peace Park in Japan.

I highly recommend that anyone with an interest in WWII buy this book from Hap. There is a hyperlink below in his biography from which to order.

The book is filled with Hap's story, his ordeals, and his ultimate triumph. It is also filled with rare photographs. The book is a large hardback and even came Priority Mail in a matter of days.

Hap's Prisoner of War Armband from his Japanese imprisonment. POWs in Japan were treated brutally.

Hap Halloran, you are one of a kind. Thanks again for the book, and even more, for your service to our country and the cause of freedom.

Below is Hap's biography, taken from his website at: http://www.haphalloran.com/

The Autobiography of Raymond "Hap" Halloran

Ray "HAP" Halloran, was born February 4, 1922 in Cincinnati, Ohio of parents, Paul and Gertrude Halloran; the second of 5 boys.

Shortly after Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) Hap volunteered for the Army Air Force at Wright-Patterson air base in Dayton, Ohio.

He completed training as Navigator (Hondo, Texas) and Bombardier (Roswell, New Mexico) Volunteered for training in new bomber (B-29). Trained at Smoky Hill Air Base in Salina, Kansas. Our crew of 11 was referred to as "Rover Boys Express". We were assigned to 878th Squadron, 499th Bomb Group VH, 73rd Wing, 20th Air Force.

After completion of operational training in Kansas we spent a short period of time in Lincoln, Nebraska; then Herington, Kansas where we received our brand new B-29 (flown to Herington from the production line at Boeing Wichita Plant). We then received orders to fly to Mather Field, California; then to John Rogers Field, Honolulu. We then flew to Kwajalein Atoll and our final leg was to Saipan in the Northern Marianas Islands. We traveled alone the entire trip.
Saipan was the base of operations for the 73rd Wing in that battle against targets on the Japanese mainland.

On our forth mission against Japanese targets we were shot down on a high altitude mission against target 357; Nakajima Aircraft plant in Musashino on the west edge of Tokyo.
A twin engine Japanese fighter plane (Nick) came in head on and critically damaged our plane (V Square 27). The comfortable temperature in our pressurized B-29 immediately assumed outside air temperature of -58 degrees. We lost two engines and our major controls within the plane. We were doomed; we fell behind the formation. We realized we must abandon our plane over enemy territory east of Tokyo.

Painting of our B-29 V Square 27 passing Mt. Fuji on bomb run against Target 357 1/27/45.
All crew members were alerted to necessity to parachute. (Tail Gunner Dead). I left the bomber thru the front bomb bay (nose wheel blocked normal front escape route).

I fell free for an estimated 24,000 feet before opening my chute at about 3,000 feet over Chiba Prefecture East of Tokyo. Japanese fighters closed in as I hung in my chute. One saluted me from in close. A rarity. Six of The Rover Boys crew did not survive that day.

As could be expected I was treated brutally by civilians before being taken on a truck to Kempei Tai torture prison in downtown Tokyo across from the moat at the north end of the Imperial Palace grounds. I was confined in solitary in a cold dark cage in a wooden stable near the Kempei Tai headquarters building. Food was a small ball of rice several times a day; no medical treatment. Silence was a firm rule except during interrogations. One desperately tried to survive.

Survived the massive low level March 10th, 1945 fire raid on Tokyo by fellow B-29 crews. The fire, heat, smoke and resultant firestorm was terrifying. Never expected to survive that night.
Shortly thereafter I was removed from my cage and taken to Ueno Zoo where I was put on a display naked in a tiger cage and civilians could walk in front of cage and view this hated B-29 prisoner. I had lost perhaps 80 or 90 pounds by then and my body was dirty and covered with running sores from bed bug, flea and lice infestation. Conditions were extreme. I cried (a form of relief) and prayed constantly.

Was moved early in April 1945 to Omori Prisoner of War facility on SW edge of Tokyo. Was with fellow B-29 prisoners and other Americans including Gregory "Pappy" Boyington and 8 survivors of the submarine Tang. What a wonderful thing to be out of solitary and being able to talk with fellow B-29ers. We each had a space 24 x 70 inches. We learned to live together under a demanding situation. Food was the dominant subject of all conversations. We were subject to bombings and strafings by our planes. Our facilities were not identified as a POW compound. Those were extremely difficult days as we tried to survive.

The war ended on August 15, 1945. We were liberated from Omori on August 29th by Marines in landing craft and taken aboard the Hospital ship Benevolence in Tokyo Bay. Spent two weeks in Benevolence (not physically fit to travel). Was on the Benevolence when the Peace Treaty was signed on the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945. Admiral Halsey visited me in my room on the Benevolence.

Eventually flown home. Spent months in Ashford government hospital in West Virginia. Adjustment to normal life came slowly. Experienced almost 40 years of nightmares; very disruptive to my family life. In the early years after the return from POW days I absolutely tried to wipe out all those bad memories of my time in Japan. I failed.
Finally in 1984 - after much preparation and help from the US ambassador, Mike Mansfield, I returned to Japan. I hoped I could void all my memories of "those long ago days" and view people and places as they are presently.

Positive results slowly became evident in my outlook, feelings and judgments.
Understanding and reconciliation became a reality.

I have subsequently returned to Japan seven more times and visited all the major cities and with much help able to meet Isamu Kashiide, the pilot of the Nick plane that shot us down in 1945; he died on June 3, 2003. Also visited with Kaneyuki Kobayashi a former good guard.
Eventually made many new friends including Saburo Sakai, WWII Zero ace. We golfed and did air shows together. He died of a heart attack in August of 2000 while guest at a luncheon with U.S. military officers. At his request I continued to mentor his daughter, Michiko. She graduated from Trinity College in San Antonio, Texas.

By invitation I speak to groups in museums, temples, Peace Parks and other assembly points throughout Japan. Among other places on my 2002 visit I spoke to groups in Peace Parks in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many of those folks were there (or their families impacted) on August 6th and 9th in 1945. They also were seeking closure almost 58 years later. I was guest and keynote speaker at dedication of a new museum on Tokyo on March 9, 2002. 31 folks from Tokyo, Kyoto, Yokohama, Hiroshima, Osaki, Nagasaki and other cities visited my home in August of 2002.

I also exchanged emails on frequent basis with historian friends in Japan and tour with them on my return visits. My return visits to Japan generally include visits to Saipan, Tinian and Guam.
I left the military service in the latter part of 1946. The road to normalcy proceeded slowly. In 1958 I joined former Consolidated Freightways, an eventual 3 billion dollar motor carrier and was associated with them for 44 years. Attained position of Executive Vice President and member of the Board of Directors.

I have three children. Dan lives in Boca Raton, Florida. Tim is presently relocating to Brentwood, California. Peggy lives in Redwood City, California.

I live in Menlo Park, California and travel extensively (over 5 million commercial air miles). Have done things with ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, History and Discovery Channels and participated in a Dan Rather NBC "Victory in the Pacific" two hour special in 1995; filmed in US, Pacific and Japan.

There isn't a day that goes by that my memories do not flash back and recall events of those long ago days. I remember Rover Boys who did not come home. I have visited their graves in Punch Bowl National Cemetery in Honolulu and in Portland, Oregon.

I appreciate and love Freedom. I appreciate even the simple things in life. I know how fortunate I was to survive and come home.

I refer to all the days as "Bonus Days." Now that I am in my golden years I refer to them as "Double Bonus Days!"

He has also written a book called "Hap's War" in 1998. You can order one through this web site. For more information, click here.

Pilot of A-Bomb B-29 Paul Tibbetts Flies Final Mission

By JULIE CARR SMYTH, Associated Press Writer

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Paul Tibbets, who piloted the B-29 bomber Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, died Thursday. He was 92 and insisted for six decades after the war that he had no regrets about the mission and slept just fine at night.

Tibbets died at his Columbus home. He suffered from a variety of health problems and had been in decline for two months.

Tibbets had requested no funeral and no headstone, fearing it would provide his detractors with a place to protest, said Gerry Newhouse, a longtime friend. (My comment: I find this very sad).

Tibbets' historic mission in the plane named for his mother marked the beginning of the end of World War II and eliminated the need for what military planners feared would have been an extraordinarily bloody invasion of Japan. It was the first use of a nuclear weapon in wartime.
The plane and its crew of 14 dropped the five-ton "Little Boy" bomb on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945. The blast killed 70,000 to 100,000 people and injured countless others.

Three days later, the United States dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Tibbets did not fly in that mission. The Japanese surrendered a few days later, ending the war.

"I knew when I got the assignment it was going to be an emotional thing," Tibbets told The Columbus Dispatch for a story published on the 60th anniversary of the bombing. "We had feelings, but we had to put them in the background. We knew it was going to kill people right and left. But my one driving interest was to do the best job I could so that we could end the killing as quickly as possible."

Morris Jeppson, the officer who armed the bomb during the Hiroshima flight, said Tibbets was energetic, well-respected and "hard-nosed."

"Ending the war saved a lot of U.S. armed forces and Japanese civilians and military," Jeppson said. "History has shown there was no need to criticize him."

Tibbets, then a 30-year-old colonel, never expressed regret over his role. He said it was his patriotic duty and the right thing to do.

"I'm not proud that I killed 80,000 people, but I'm proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did," he said in a 1975 interview.

"You've got to take stock and assess the situation at that time. We were at war. ... You use anything at your disposal."

He added: "I sleep clearly every night."

Tibbets took quiet pride in the job he had done, said journalist Bob Greene, who wrote the Tibbets biography, "Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War."

"He said, 'What they needed was someone who could do this and not flinch” and that was me,'" Greene said.

Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. was born Feb. 23, 1915, in Quincy, Ill., and spent most of his boyhood in Miami.

He was a student at the University of Cincinnati's medical school when he decided to withdraw in 1937 to enlist in the Army Air Corps.

After the war, Tibbets said in 2005, he was dogged by rumors claiming he was in prison or had committed suicide.

"They said I was crazy, said I was a drunkard, in and out of institutions," he said. "At the time, I was running the National Crisis Center at the Pentagon."

Tibbets retired from the Air Force as a brigadier general in 1966. He later moved to Columbus, where he ran an air taxi service until he retired in 1985.

The National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton plans a photographic tribute to Tibbets, who was inducted in 1996.

"There are few in the history of mankind that have been called to figuratively carry as much weight on their shoulders as Paul Tibbets," director Ron Kaplan said in a statement. "Even fewer were able to do so with a sense of honor and duty to their countrymen as did Paul."
Tibbets' role in the bombing brought him fame ” and infamy ” throughout his life.
In 1976, he was criticized for re-enacting the bombing during an appearance at a Harlingen, Texas, air show. As he flew a B-29 Superfortress over the show, a bomb set off on the runway below created a mushroom cloud.

He said the display "was not intended to insult anybody," but the Japanese were outraged. The U.S. government later issued a formal apology.

Tibbets again defended the bombing in 1995, when an outcry erupted over a planned 50th anniversary exhibit of the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian Institution.

The museum had planned to mount an exhibit that would have examined the context of the bombing, including the discussion within the Truman administration of whether to use the bomb, the rejection of a demonstration bombing and the selection of the target.

Veterans groups objected, saying the proposed display paid too much attention to Japan's suffering and too little to Japan's brutality during and before World War II, and that it underestimated the number of Americans who would have perished in an invasion.

They said the bombing of Japan was an unmitigated blessing for the United States and the exhibit should say so.

Tibbets denounced it as "a damn big insult."

The museum changed its plan and agreed to display the fuselage of the Enola Gay without commentary, context or analysis.

He told the Dispatch in 2005 that he wanted his ashes scattered over the English Channel, where he loved to fly during the war.

Newhouse confirmed that Tibbets wanted to be cremated, but he said relatives had not yet determined how he would be laid to rest.

Tibbets is survived by his wife, Andrea, and three sons: Paul, Gene and James as well as a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A grandson named after Tibbets followed his grandfather into the military as a B-2 bomber pilot currently stationed in Belgium. "

My own thoughts on Paul Tibbetts and his important mission: by dropping the A-bomb on Hiroshima, Tibbetts saved the lives of countless American soldiers who would have died in a land invasion of Japan, not to mention the lives of all the Japanese military personnel and civilians. The fact that Hiroshima killed thousands must thus be looked at in perspective with the lives it saved. War is about killing, and in the words of American general William T. Sherman, "War is Hell". I am equally saddened by the loss of young American lives at Pearl Harbor in an unprovoked attack on December 7, 1941.

___

Top Ten Bombers

And the winner is.....? (According to the Military Channel's 'Top Ten Bombers' show)

The Military Channel had a show on last night in which it attempted to analyze and rank the top ten bombers. It was a great show and it is an interesting and thought-provoking list. The planes were ranked on such things as service life, armament, fear factor, defensive armament, range, innovation, etc.

I have no argument with the ranking of the Boeing B-52 as the top bomber of all time. After all, it has been in continuous service for over fifty years. However, I was a little surprised that the venerable Boeing B-17 was ranked tenth on the list. The top four were: B-52, B-2, B-29 and Mosquito--all great planes. The B-17 was ranked low because of its short service life (only really used in WWII, while the B-29 was used in Korea as well) and relatively small bomb load.

The list and arguments are to be found at the Military Channel's website and at this webpage: http://military.discovery.com/convergence/topten/bombers/slideshow/slideshow.html. It's a fascinating and highly debatable list.

10. B-17

9. Handley-Page 0/100

8. Junkers JU-88

7. Tupelov Tu-95 'Bear'

6. Boeing B-47 Stratojet (what a beautiful plane that was!)

5. Avro Lancaster

4. De Havilland Mosquito

3. Boeing B-29

2. Boeing B-2

1. Boeing B-52

Comments? Arguments? Where's the B-24?

Enola Gay Restoration Update

Enola Gay: The Plane that Helped save Millions of Lives in the Pacific by dropping the A-Bomb in 1945. This picture can be super-sized by double-clicking.

Thanks to my friend Jay Buckley of Colorado for sending me this story.

Beautiful restoration for one of the most historic aircraft of all time.

Compared to today's aircraft, it seems small - - - but in the latter part of WWII the B-29 was the biggest thing flying. The Enola Gay has led a somewhat checkered life, and it was only in 1960 that it was dismantled and finally put under cover (and security) at the Smithsonian's Paul Garber facility. Up until that time it sat at various storage sites, open to souvenir hunters, animals, and the weather.

At last count, about 300,000 man-hours have gone into recovering from that situation, as well as researching and removing 'official' modifications made to it after the flight from Tinian in 1945 when she dropped the atom bomb on Japan. Now completely reassembled and staged at the new Udvar-Hazy Museum at Dulles International Airport , Enola Gay is externally complete. She still needs much avionics restoration work inside. That work will continue over the next few years. Although the public will not be allowed inside the plane, devotees of this famous aircraft have closely followed the restoration philosophy to make sure that it follows the effort expended to restore other aircraft in the National and Air Space Museum (NASM) collection, even to the point of ensuring that the electronic equipment donated for the effort has vacuum tubes with the correct date codes. Happily for the thousands of folks who began to tour the new museum when it opened on 15 December, NASM is planning an interactive virtual tour of the interior of this aircraft - and it will also be accessible from the web.

A virtual treasure trove of historic aircraft at Dulles Airport, part of the Smithsonian Air and Space Collection.

Hill Air Force Base Museum Visit

B-25 Mitchell, Hill AFB Museum


P-51 Mustang, Hill AFB Museum



B-29 Superfortress, Hill AFB Museum





B-17 Bomber, 'Short Bier', Hill AFB Museum

On the way home from Salt Lake, my wife Geri and I stopped at the Hill Air Force Base Aviation Museum in Roy, Utah (near Ogden). I have been visiting this museum for about fifteen years and every year it gets better. The museum is free of charge; however, donations are accepted. There are elderly volunteers around the museum to answer questions--and many of them are veterans of WWII, Korea or Vietnam. This is one of the nation's outstanding air museums, with a massive collection of static aircraft.

Here is the hyperlink for the Hill Air Force Base website: http://www.hill.af.mil/library/museum/index.asp

Article about a B-29 Bomber Crewman in Korea

This article appears in the July 4 issue of Idaho Falls Magazine, honoring a local Air Force veteran who flew the Superfortress over Korea. Marshall Dullum, at the time I interviewed him, was recovering from open-heart surgery.


Marshall Dullum is 79 years old, a modest man who, like most veterans, would be the last to tell you that he is a hero. The Idaho Falls resident, originally from Minnesota, spent five years in the United States Air Force, beginning in 1946 during the German Occupation and ending as a radio operator on one of the largest prop-driven bombers ever built-- the magnificent sixty-ton, 9,000 horsepower B-29 Superfortress.

Figure 1 S/Sgt. Marshall A. Dullum, Front Row, Second From Left


He put his college education on hold to serve his country and ended up never finishing. At a time when many young men were pursuing education and careers, he was flying high-level combat missions in the dangerous skies over North Korea in what many historians call ‘the forgotten war’.

Dullum joined the Merchant Marine directly out of high school, and served about a year before enlisting in the Air Force in 1946. After training in the States, Dullum was shipped overseas and was stationed at a former German air base near Vienna, Austria. Originally in the motor pool, he yearned for more excitement, so when a friend told him about a chance to apply for radio operator school, he jumped on it. After finishing ground operator school, he proceeded to airborne radio school and ended up flying as a crewman on C-47s, the military equivalent of the DC-3.

In 1949, Dullum was discharged and returned to California to pursue his college studies. However, as a member of the reserves, he was called up only ten months later. “I wanted to go to college, but the Strategic Air Command had a lot of pull,” he remembers. “There were a lot of guys in training who you could tell by their age were probably World War Two veterans.”

By January, 1950, Dullum was training in California to be a radio operator on the massive Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber. “It was a beautiful plane,” he remembers. “I loved it. It was the biggest four-engine plane the United States had at the time, other than the B-36.” It could fly at up to 400 mph at well over 30,000 feet, and it could carry two thousand pounds of bombs up to 5,000 miles. Defensively, the Superfortress bristled with ten fifty-caliber machine guns of 1,000 rounds each. Later models also had a 20 mm cannon in the tail.

Production of B-29s had been discontinued at the end of World War Two, after the manufacture of a little over 3,600 planes. However, the new Strategic Air Command retained the bomber for use in the postwar years. In 1950, the B-29 was reclassified as a medium, rather than a heavy, bomber because its long-range duties had been taken over by the newer Boeing B-36 and B-50. On June 25, 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea, and President Harry Truman committed U.S. forces to protect the South. The B-29 began bombing shortly thereafter, both in tactical roles against troop concentrations, bridges, and supplies and against strategic targets such as railroad marshalling yards in North Korea.

Dullum ended up in the 23rd Bomb Group, stationed at Yokota Air Force Base near Tokyo, Japan. He was one of a crew of eleven men, five officers and six enlisted men. “They were a wonderful crew,” he remembers. “The enlisted men lived in wooden barracks, and we had no extra duties, just flying. Very occasionally, we got bacon and eggs for breakfast, but things were still pretty tight in Japan after the war.” His crew included four officers--the aircraft commander (commonly known as chief pilot), pilot, Navigator, Bombardier, V/O, and six enlisted men: an engineer, a central fire control specialist, right and left waist gunners, radio operator and tail gunner.

Dullum’s crew flew the same, un-named B-29 on all missions. The plane, a World War Two veteran, had flown bombing missions over Japan. In Dellum’s crew photo, one can see bombs painted under the pilot’s window, one for each mission the old plane has flown. There are 92 bombs painted on the plane. Three of the bombs are painted white. These blank bombs, Dullum explains, are from “fish-feeding missions”, when for some reason the plane was unable to bomb the target and had to dump the bomb load at sea, since planes were not allowed to return to base loaded.

Missions could last as long as thirteen hours. During missions, Dullum manned the radio compartment. He also dropped chaff (aluminum strips that confuse radar), and armed the bombs. “When we dropped the bombs,” he remembers, “we’d drop the cabin pressure and I’d go into the bomb bay and pull the arming pins so the impellors would turn. I spent a lot of time pulling pins in the forward bomb bay and working on equipment in the aft set. Never once did we have clusters or individual bombs hang up, thanks to a very good crew that took pride in their work.” With radiomen on the other ships, he sent out radio signals to jam North Korean anti-aircraft batteries.

“When the flak batteries found our range anyway, the aircraft commander would come on the interphone and say, ‘What the heck are you doing, Dullum?!’

“‘It could have been worse, sir, we didn’t get hit,’ I’d say.”

“‘Why did we even bring you along?’ he’d ask, and my smart answer was ‘to empty the honey bucket, sir.’”

“Thirteen-hour missions made the honey bucket a necessity. The rule was, the first to use it had to empty it for the rest of the mission. “On mission day, I wouldn’t drink any coffee. I wouldn’t even put milk on my cereal,” Dullum chuckles.

“Our main worry was the Mig-15 jet fighters, but they didn’t want to get too close to us. We had a lot of firepower on each plane. The Migs were a lot faster than we were. But they didn’t like the high altitude. We bombed at 38,000 feet. We also had to worry about flak from anti-aircraft batteries down below. Thankfully, nobody got shot down. About the time I left, the Air Force began flying all their missions at night. Daylight bombing was just becoming too risky. The anti-aircraft fire was becoming more accurate and the enemy fighters were getting better.”

After his one-year redeployment, Dullum returned to California but came up short of finishing college. He spent his working years as a policeman and as an inspector of various weights and measures devices for petroleum, electricity and food. Idaho’s low cost of living attracted Dullum and his wife to Idaho Falls several years ago, and they are enjoying becoming part of the community.
Looking back, Marshall Dullum thinks fondly of the giant B-29 Superfortress, and laments the fact that at present, there is only one B-29 that is still flyable in the world. He had a chance to visit this bomber, named ‘Fifi’, in California a few years back, and sat in his old position in the bowels of the great ship. “It felt just as big as ever”, he remembers.
“Thanks to the Good Lord and a super crew, we experienced very few problems. I have a great love and respect for the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, and for the C-47.”
Just as Americans need to remember to love and respect veterans.