Bomber Gas Station

When I was a kid we lived in Seattle and would take trips to Salem, Oregon to visit my grandmother and uncles.  In those days there were no interstate highways, so my dad would drive us down US Highway 99 through Tacoma, Olympia, Centralia and a bunch of other small towns on the way to the Oregon border.

When we crossed into Oregon we continued down US 99 and eventually split off onto “99E.”  Well, 99E went through the community of Milwaukie.  I distinctly remember passing a gas station called “The Bomber” that had a B-17 bomber mounted above the gas pumps!  I don’t remember ever stopping for gas (that was when it was something like 25.9¢ a gallon!) but I still can see that big airplane in my mind’s eye!  On a website I was The Bomber had the highest volume sales of gasoline of any station at the time!

Recently, I drove to Salem to see a friend from high school and I purposely drove the slow 99E route and wondered whatever happened to the Bomber Gas Station.  To diverge slightly, a few days ago I saw a newspaper article about the Cowlitz Indian Tribe’s “Beaver Kit Cam” at the tribe’s beaver husbandry facility on the Cowlitz reservation in southwest Washington.  At the website there was a list of YouTube videos; at the top of the list was “Recovering B-17 “Lacey’s Lady”: Gas Station Bomber to Fly Again.” This is a 20 minute video about this very same plane I saw when I was a kid!

The plane is now at the B-17 Alliance Museum, Restoration Hangar, and PX, 3278 25th St. SE, Salem, OR. 97302

https://b17alliance.com/museum/

Here’s the link to the YouTube bomber video…take a look, I think you’ll enjoy it!  (Please note there may be an add at the beginning of the video that you can skip.)

Remembering Our Friends This Memorial Day

Please take a moment to remember our friends who gave their lives in the service to their country while serving with us in the 225th Aviation Company in Vietnam.  Click on the link below.

https://vimeo.com/user10634067/mayweneverforget?fl=ip&fe=ec

It's Been A Long Time!

Well, it’s been a long time since I posted a new article on the “Observer", the last one being on March 25, 2021, so figured I should explain a little about why I neglected writing over the past many months.

Simply put, in 2021 my heart was broken when I watched the insane events at our Capital on January 6th.  Later, over the course of several weeks I saw on television and read in newspapers more than a few veterans my age and younger condone the actions of the insurrectionists.  This just made no sense to me.  

Back tracking just a bit, I’ll tell you that I had generally voted Republican since I turned 21 in Vietnam.  The exceptions being that I voted consistently for our two senators from Washington State, Warren Magnuson and Henry “Scoop” Jackson, who were both Democrats, when they were in office.  Sometime in 2018 I watched Meet the Press on NBC when the late Tim Russert interviewed then Senator Barack Obama.  I was impressed by Obama’s answers to Russert’s questions.  

Not much later in the presidential campaign when Trump got involved and, even though John McCain was a veteran and, to my mind, a good candidate and a war hero from the same war I fought in, Trump’s language and what-turned-out-to-be lies got more and more disparaging about Mr. Obama, I could not continue being a Republican any longer.  The lies unfortunately have continued with our now-criminally convicted current president.

To my mind since that time the Republican Party has steadily become more and more radical and unhinged.  I have voted Democratic in each election since.  Coupled with the pandemic that cancelled two of our Mohawk Reunions in New Orleans, this reinforced my decision to discontinue participating in veteran-related activities.

So now time has passed and it’s 2026.  And I’ve decided the write again.  However, since I had not used the Mailchimp mailing list for such a long time, seems that the list has been tossed out and no longer exists with Mailchimp’s parent Intuit.  But just a few days ago I discovered a complete email list still on my trusty Mac!  Small miracles never cease to amaze me!

That in the proverbial nutshell is why I have been silent on my blog until this time.

So, what have I been doing instead of posting stuff on my blog?  Well, in 2019 my bride of nearly fifty-three years and I moved from Kirkland, Washington, where we lived in the same house for 43 years, to about 70 miles south to Lacey into a brand new house.  We have enjoyed putting in a backyard (the front was already done!), doing lots and lots of reading, some traveling to DC and Baja California Sur, making new friends in our 55+ community.  I work out frequently at LA Fitness, and build model airplanes like I did when I was a kid.  In fact, I have plane reservations to go to our Mohawk Association's 2026 Reunion in Washington, DC in August!

The first model I attempted was an OV-1B (“SLAR Bird”) like we had in Vietnam (photo below).  I flew a SLAR mission over Cambodia with CWO Bob Jensen (even though the US “never” was in Cambodia).  I bought this model at the Pleiku hobby shop one day when I visited our ground station there.  At the time the electronics on the Mohawk were cutting edge technology.  Since then I have assembled a number of models like a PBY, Spitfire, Corsair, Hellcat, and the little known British aeroplane the deHavilland Mosquito which was built entirely of wood during World War II.

Anyway, I’m back now and will continue to add some things of interest more or less regularly.  [Here’s a link to the original “225th Observer” to which for some reason I could not add items after January 2017. www.225observer.blogspot.com]

 

How 'Bout This for a Model Airplane?

I’ve been model-making only a couple of months now, so I’m not an expert by any definition.  Our friend Jim Taylor sent me the linked Youtube of s guy who is by anybody’s description an expert in the model-making realm.  Click on this link to see his result of building a one-third scale model of a Flying Fortress!  The best way I can think of classifying it is WOW!  (The photo above is from the website of the Mighty 8th Air Force Museum and is of the restoration of their Douglas-manufactured B-17.)

F4U-4 Corsair in Lacey

I’ve finished my 2nd model airplane of the pandemic.  It wasn’t as difficult as thought it might be.  The reason on picked an F4U Corsair is because at Seattle’s Museum of Flight there is fully restored (and I believe flyable) Goodyear F2G-1 Super Corsair that was salvaged after many years of sitting on the bottom Lake Washington.  You see, the I was a kid Sand Point Naval Air Station occupied the site that is now Magnuson Park (owned now by the City of Seattle) on the shore of Lake Washington.  This airplane’s driver for whatever reason decided that is was a float plane and ran right off the end of the runway into the drink.  I’ve seen the museum’s Corsair (which is on loan from the Navy), and also one that is at the National Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport.  And so I thought it would be a good model to build.

Steve Sachs the Former "NG"

When I published the article on February 5th about the heritage of the 225th, our friend Steve Sachs sent me an email about his time at the University of Alabama.  He asked me to publish it on this blog......

I was in an asterisk [*] National Guard unit in collage.  The * was a designation that we were a recently converted unit from all (cld).  I painted the beds of 2 1/2 trucks every Monday night.  We did not clean or prep the beds, just painted over the dirt and old paint.  George Corley Wallace was our governor (Alabama).  We were federalized for two months so he could not use the Guard to prevent integration of the University of Alabama.  This was a good deal for our unit, we did not do anything.  We did get paid for the time we were federalized!  This was in 1962-63.  Many years later, Governor Wallace went to the largest Black Church in Montgomery, Alabama.  He was not invited, but when he wheeled himself down the aisle, there was a dead silence.  He apologized to the congregation and all Alabama.  I don't that there was a single person that didn't tear up.

225th Surveillance Airplane Company History

 

When I started the original version of the 225th Observer in 2007 my purpose was to connect with all of you with whom I served at “Phabulous Phu Hiep by the Sea” a half century ago.  Early on someone asked me about the heritage of the company, when and why did it come into existence.   I knew that the unit was activated at Fort Lewis, Washington, but that was a about all.

In 2008 Howard Ohlson, who had the old website OV-1.com, sent me some information about the origins of the 225th Surveillance Airplane Company, that I published in two entries on the first Observer blog.  Since February is officially Black History Month I thought I’d republish what I found out by linking the 2 articles here:

The 225th SAC, aka Co. K, 34th QM Truck Regiment (Trk) (Cld)

More 225th History