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Doc's Updates

 

 



B-29 Volunteers Burnish Memories on Restoration
Wichita Eagle 08/29/00 by Molly McMillin

In a hangar at Boeing Wichita, a "polishing party" brings together aficionados of the World War II Superfortress to nurture this one back to health.

Esther Gemas was 18 when she was a sheet-metal worker helping to help build B-29 heavy bombers at Boeing Wichita during World War II. On Monday, Gemas worked alongside her daughter-in-law, Mary Jo Gemas, as part of a team of volunteers who spent much of their day at a "polishing party," buffing the exterior of "Doc," a vintage B-29 Superfortress undergoing restoration in a Boeing Wichita hangar.

"It brings back old memories," said Gemas, as she worked on the tail section.

With the big band sounds of the 1940s playing in the background, volunteers used cheesecloth, a special polish and lots of elbow grease to rub off years of oxidation on the plane's exterior, returning it to its original shine.

Besides making the plane look good, "pragmatically, it helps us to identify areas prone to corrosion," said Dick Ziegler, a Boeing Wichita spokesman and the director of the project.

A team of volunteers is restoring the heavy bomber into flying condition in a partnership between Boeing and the Cleveland-based U.S. Aviation Museum.

The plane undergoing restoration spent some of its active time as part of a squadron of eight bombers known as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, flying electronic countermeasures. The restoration project is expected to take 18 months to complete. So far, about 900 people, many of them Boeing retirees, have volunteered to work on the project. A variety of companies are donating materials and services.

Since the plane -- and its many pieces -- arrived by truck in May, volunteers have been working to inventory the array of parts, put tooling in place and begin the planning and engineering of the plane, said David Stein, the project's program manager. Other volunteers have been disassembling the four engines and their components for refurbishment, Stein said.

Much work lies ahead.

Each airplane part will be closely inspected for signs of corrosion or physical damage. The parts then will be refurbished before being reassembled. Marvin Story said he wanted to be part of the project as soon as he read about it in the newspaper. He saw his first B-29s as a boy in Pittsburgh, KS at a Fourth of July parade.

Now retired and in a wheelchair, Story spends his mornings in charge of the tool crib, passing out tool bits, drills, rivet guns and other tools as volunteers need them. "The pot of gold at the end of this rainbow," Story said with a smile and a nod toward the plane, "is the day we crank up the four engines."



Owen W. Hughes was born in Fremont, Ohio 1919 and is now residing in Newark, New York. He has been drawing and painting from about the age of 5. He began his professional career as an artist in 1939, designing and painting outdoor displays throughout the Midwestern states and later as a cartoonist for a utility company in Ohio.

He spent four and one-half years in the U.S. Army Air Force during World War 11 as an artist and sign painter in the 8th Air Force, then later in the 9th Air Force. He then transferred to the 441st Troup Carrier Group where he assembled and did all of the art work for a historical book for and about that group. At the conclusion of the war he was put in charge of all art and sign work for the 9th Troup Carrier Command in an Air Force exhibit under the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France.

Mr. Hughes has exhibited his paintings in the Presidents Park in Washington, D.C.; the Toledo, Ohio Art Gallery and various other shows. He also has a very large oil painting hanging in a church near Toledo, Ohio and many paintings in private collections.

He has been a commercial artist with the Murray Bicycle Co. and in the folding carton industry for 26 years in Cleveland, Ohio, Buffalo and Newark, N.Y, retiring in 1981 to go into his own business. Also he is now the volunteer artist and sign painter with the National Warplane museum in Elmira, N.Y.

His work with WWII airplane nose art during the war and present has been written up in "Who's Who in the East"; 'Who's Who in the America"; "Who's Who in the World"; and "Men in Achievement" published by the International Biographical Center of Cambridge, England. While painting the nose art on a B-24 bomber in Dayton, Ohio he was interviewed by the Associated Press and on national TV.

He has recently been commissioned to design and paint the nose art on a WWII P-38 fighter plane that was recovered from a glacier in Greenland in 1992. His work and story on this P-38 has been included in the British publication "Warbirds Worldwide" and distributed to at least 39 countries.

He studied at the Toledo Art Gallery after WWII and is a graduate of the famous Artists Schools; the Rochester Institute of Technology and the School of Modern Photography.

Owen has also been commissioned to do a painting of the Discovery shuttle to be piloted and commanded by Lt. Col. Pamela Ann Melroy. It was requested by her parents, David and Helen, and to be given to Pam upon her return. Pam's parents are residents of Pittsford N.Y At present Pam's flight is to fly in Oct. 2000. The mission is to take parts up for the international space station.

Upon the completion of "Doc's" restoration, Owen's creation, "Tony's Dream" (seen above) will appear as the nose art for the B-29.

Mr. Hughes is also the artist in residence for the United States Air Musem.


Boeing's B-29 Superfortress Takes to the Sky Again