SALEM, Ore. – The hangar fell quiet for nearly 30 minutes on Armed Forces Day while Capt. Richard "Dick" Nelms stood before a crowd at the B-17 Alliance Museum & Restoration Hangar at Salem McNary Airfield and described, in precise and unhurried detail, what it felt like to fly a B-17 Flying Fortress over Nazi-occupied Europe at 25,000 feet with flak tearing through the fuselage around him.
He is 103 years old. You could have heard a pin drop.
The B-17 Alliance Foundation hosted its fourth annual Armed Forces Day Celebration on May 16, drawing veterans, families, military personnel and history enthusiasts to its restoration hangar in Salem. The event featured military and classic vehicles, live music, a BBQ fundraiser and a color guard presentation, all centered around the foundation's signature project: the "Lacey Lady," a B-17G Flying Fortress and one of only two active B-17 restoration efforts in the United States.
But the afternoon belonged to Nelms.
A volunteer with the Army Air Forces Aviation Cadet Corps, Nelms was commissioned as a B-17 pilot and assigned to the 447th Bombardment Group (Heavy) at RAF Rattlesden, USAAF Station 126 in Mid Suffolk, England, one of the Eighth Air Force's most accurate bomb groups. Between May 18 and September 7, 1944, he completed 35 combat missions over occupied Europe, flying through temperatures of 49 degrees below zero and through curtains of anti-aircraft fire so thick that veterans said you could get out and walk on it.
"The sky's exploding," Nelms said, describing a bomb run over a heavily defended target. "You have black puffs of smoke tearing everywhere. When one is close, you fly through it; you can hear pieces of steel tearing holes into the aluminum skin of your airplane. A bad sound. And what do you do? We keep flying."
The Eighth Air Force, he reminded the audience, was never turned back by enemy action.
When the tour was finished, Nelms sailed home aboard the Queen Elizabeth. As the ship entered New York Harbor, there were no banners, no confetti, no parade, but when the Statue of Liberty came into view, none of that mattered.
"When we saw the Statue of Liberty," he said, "it took care of all of that."
For Terry Scott, executive director of the B-17 Alliance Foundation, having Nelms at the event fulfilled a mission the organization set for itself years ago, after a veteran told her the community was drifting away from honoring those who served.
"Having Dick Nelms here was just heart-wrenching," Scott said. "He's like one of the few left."
Oregon National Guard representatives played a prominent role in the ceremony. Lt. Col. Christopher Webb, Oregon Air National Guard, delivered Armed Forces Day remarks to the assembled crowd, drawing a line from the crews of the Eighth Air Force to the Citizen-Soldiers serving today.
"We have one foot on the military side and one foot on the civilian side at all times," Webb said. "By doing work with the community, by being ambassadors of the military, we're really highlighting that dual role."
As part of the event, the B-17 Alliance Museum joined the Blue Star Museums program, providing free admission to active-duty military personnel, including National Guard and Reserve members, and their families through Labor Day.
Nelms, who lives on Mercer Island, Washington, closed his remarks with characteristic brevity. When his points accumulated enough to leave the service, a general asked what he wanted to do. Nelms had one question: would he still be flying?
"You'd be flying, Nelms," the general told him. "Probably flying a pencil."
He thanked the man and walked out as a civilian, eventually becoming a commercial artist. He told his story standing up, without notes, for the better part of half an hour. At the end, the room applauded, the kind that doesn't stop right away.
Nelms' appearance was made possible in part through the Oregon Spirit of 45, a statewide program dedicated to keeping the stories of the World War II generation alive. Barbara Jensen, founder and president of the Oregon Spirit of 45, connected Nelms with the B-17 Alliance after he expressed a longstanding wish to visit the Lacey Lady restoration. Jensen said Nelms' motivation for continuing to share his story is simple: he wants to honor the comrades he left behind.