WWII B-25 bomber makes stop in Fremont

Historic plane was en route to Wisconsin air show

Daniel Carson
The News-Messenger
The "Miss Hap," a B-25 bomber that stopped in Fremont to refuel Monday night, was the personal transport of  Gen. Henry "Hap" Arnold during World War II.

FREMONT - Three times the "Miss Hap" circled over Fremont Airport, as a small crowd of airplane enthusiasts patiently waited for the World War II-era B-25 bomber to touch down.

The bomber, built in 1940, hit the runway with a nervous wiggle, a high-pitched screech of its brakes, and a belching chug of smoke from one of its engines, as it slowed and taxied around to the airport's fuel pumps.

A piece of history had landed in Fremont.

"I think it's one of the most beautiful aircraft I've ever seen," said Vickery resident and pilot Dave Cobb, as he and other aircraft aficionados waited for the bomber to arrive at the airport.

The Miss Hap crew stopped here to refuel Monday night on their way to Wisconsin and the EAA Air Venture Oshkosh air show, which features a 75th anniversary reunion of the Doolittle Raiders and a collection of several other remaining B-25 bombers.

Nick Ziroli, of Long Island, New York, the plane's co-pilot, said the North American B-25 Mitchell bomber was the oldest flying B-25 left from World War II.

He said B-25 bombers flew on the Tokyo Raid in April 1942, where then-Col. Jimmy Doolittle led 16 planes in the war's first U.S. bombing raid on the Japanese mainland.

The B-25 that landed in Fremont served as Gen. Henry "Hap" Arnold's personal transport during the war, hence the name Miss Hap, Ziroli said.

He said the crew decided to stop in Fremont on its way to the air show and Doolittle reunion because the Sandusky County airport was simply "on the way."

"And you're open late, too," Ziroli said, noting that Sandusky's airport had already closed by the time the Miss Hap landed around 8 p.m.

Ziroli co-piloted the plane with Max Hodges. Both men are volunteer members of the American Airpower Museum, a nonprofit museum in East Farmingdale, New York.

The B-25 bomber "Miss Hap," which stopped in Fremont Monday night to refuel, was built in 1940.

This B-25 was not set up for bombing and had no bomb bay.

A closer look inside the Miss Hap's front machine gun turret Monday revealed a grinning Rocky the Flying Squirrel doll belted into a gunner's seat, as airport visitors snapped photos of the historic aircraft in the dwindling sunlight.

The Miss Hap flies about a dozen times a year, Ziroli said, and was restored in the 1980s after being salvaged from a scrapyard.

Cobb said the B-25 featured two engines and was considered a medium bomber used for several different purposes during World War II.

He said he had a chance years ago to buy one for $9,000, but passed on the opportunity.

"It's probably worth a million bucks now," he said with a grin.

As a 10-year-old boy during the war, Cobb said he and other kids in his neighborhood considered pilots, not sports athletes, as their heroes.

Crew chief Jim Brown of West Islip, New York, said the Miss Hap was the fourth B-25 ever made, with a cruising speed of about 180 miles per hour.

"It didn't see combat. But then again, most of the aircraft at these air shows never did see combat or they would have been destroyed after the war," Brown said.

The "Miss Hap," a World War II-era B-25 bomber, stopped in Fremont Monday night and refueled on its way to an air show in Oshkosh, Wisc.

Howard Hughes, the eccentric businessman and pilot, acquired the Miss Hap after the war and owned it for a couple of years , Brown said, before the aircraft found its way to the scrapyard.

As the sun set over nearby Ohio 53 and Miss Hap crew members refueled the plane, a persistent dribble of fuel began leaking from the aging aircraft onto the ground.

Crew members put a couple of buckets under the 77-year-old bomber to absorb the spill and made plans to push onward toward South Bend or Gary, Indiana, on Monday night as the sunlight faded.

With a jolt from the engines, both propellers started spinning and the B-25 rolled roughly across the airport's patch of grass onto the runway before circling around and lifting off over the state highway.



Twitter: @DanielCarson7