More than 50 years after his wartime service, Wade Wolfe volunteered to help restore “Fi Fi,” the only remaining flyable B-29. Wade wrote this account to tell fellow volunteers about his longtime interest in aircraft and why he became involved in the restoration.
Why
I Volunteered To Help
Refurbish “Fi Fi”
By Wade H. Wolfe
Boeing! A name that strikes a responsive chord upon my heartstrings, for it was Boeing Aircraft Company that transformed me from an 18-year-old farm boy of southeast Washington to a B-17 Flying Fortress assembly line mechanic in shop 204, plant 2. This transformation finalized on December 8, 1941, just one day following the infamous Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. I had just completed a 10-week aircraft assembly mechanics course, conducted by Boeing in Walla Walla, the Friday before Pearl Harbor.
Following ten months of employment at Boeing I enlisted in the Air Force on October 5, 1942. After completing six months of basic and aircraft engine mechanics training at Sheppard Field, Texas, I received orders to return to Seattle for enrollment in the first class to receive mechanical training for the B-29 “Superfortress.” The Boeing Bug had struck again-and it continued to be my companion throughout the remainder of my Air Force career.
On December 13, 1943, 1 received my first air crew assignment on a B-29 at Marietta, Georgia. Was I ever excited! The very first plane flight of my life was to be aboard a Boeing B-29 Superfortress and our pilot was none other than Lt. Col. Paul W. Tibbetts, the man who was destined to deliver the first A-Bomb on Hiroshima! Our southerly flight from Marietta terminated at the Air Force’s Proving Ground at Eglin Field, Florida.
Eglin Field proved to be a place of many interesting and exciting experiences. One of the more memorable experiences occurred on January 21, 1944 (the day following my birthday), when we were privileged to have come aboard our plane for a one hour and fifteen minute test flight, the man who flew the “Spirit of St. Louis” for the first nonstop solo crossing of the Atlantic, New York to Paris, May 20-21, 1927, Charles A. Lindbergh! Charles sat next to me for a portion of that flight, which was his first viewing of a B-29.
With much testing to be done on the B-29, Col. Tibbets’ group grew from a small beginning of one crew to include more planes and ground support personnel, to a total of approximately 80 men.
In the meantime the B-29s were being delivered to the Air Force in increasing numbers and reports began trickling in that not all was going well with the training of flight crews on the new plane. So it was that in May of 1944, Col. Tibbetts enlisted the help of two women pilots, members of the Women’s Auxiliary Service Pilots (W.A.S.P.). With the use of two B-29s and two crews, Dora Daughtery and D. D. Moorman, the only women to fly the B-29, were put through an intensive training period of a few weeks that qualified them to fly the Superfortress.
There was a special purpose for training these two women to fly the B- 29. Their mission was to perform demonstration flights at air base s where B- 29 crews were being trained-, in an effort to reduce the mishaps that were occurring, which resulted in the loss of planes and crew members. For this mission a plane was prepared and appropriately named “Ladybird,” with its own distinctive nose art. Before departure from Eglin Field on this mission on June 27, 1944, the selected crew members, Lt. Col. Paul W. Tibbets, the two women, D. D. Moorman and Dora Daugherty, Cpl. Raymond Gallager, Sgt. Don Duzenbury, S/Sgt. Floyd Lemely, myself, Sgt. Wade H. Wolfe, and Sgt. Henry Ellis, proudly pose with the “Ladybird” for a historical photograph, which I possess.
On October 23, 1945 I bade warm, sunny Florida farewell and winged my way north to the desolate, frozen wasteland of Alaska, setting down at Ladd Field, Fairbanks, where the cold weather testing branch of the Air Force proving ground was located. Fifty to sixty degrees below zero was testing time for the few B-29s we had there. It was also an opportunity to view the lofty, spectacular summit of Mt. McKinly from my frosty seat in the rear blister of the B-29 “Carmencita Joe.”
The restoration of “Fi Fi” resulted in a reunion, so to speak, of my Boeing family; two sisters, Margaret Berry and Winefred Wolfe, a brother Richard Wolfe, and myself. All of us had worked for Boeing in the past and we all made a contribution to the “Fi Fi” restoration.
So it was, from the blue, placid waters of the Gulf of Mexico to the wild, frozen tundra of the Arctic Circle that I rose to lofty heights on the broad, sturdy, and dependable wings of the Boeing B-29 “Superfortress”!
These are some of the reasons why I took such an interest in the restoration of the “Fi Fi,” the only remaining flyable B-29.