SAVORING VICTORY PLANE BEARS WWII MEMORIES.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Eighty-two-year-old Adie Fix stood in a gusty breeze Monday outside Fox Field's small terminal as a B-17G Flying Fortress bomber made a low pass over the runway, then circled back and landed.

The meticulously restored four-engine bomber came on a tour of the Western United States commemorating the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. Fix was there because 60 years ago he was a gunner on a bomber just like it, flying raids against Nazi Germany from England.

``It brings back a lot of memories, that thing,'' said Fix, a retired aerospace worker from Lancaster who survived 29 bombing missions in 1944 and 1945 and was wounded by a fighter attack on his 23rd combat mission.

The bomber that's in Lancaster is being flown this spring and summer around the Western U.S. in an ``Allied Victory Tour'' by the Experimental Aircraft Association.

The plane was built by Douglas Aircraft in 1944 in its Long Beach plant and delivered to the Pacific Theater. It was converted for use as a VIP transport, and in 1946 Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower used the aircraft on his tour of the South Pacific and Gen. Douglas MacArthur also used it in the 1950s.

The airplane's paint scheme matches that of the original Fuddy Duddy, a B-17G assigned to the 8th Air Force's 447th Bomb Group, to which Fix's plane belonged. Fix and his crew mates flew one bombing raid on the real Fuddy Duddy.

Fix's bomber - nicknamed Stinky, for the odoriferous diapers of the pilot's infant daughter - was damaged enough by anti-aircraft fire that twice it couldn't get back to England but had to make emergency landings in Belgium, by then recaptured by the advancing Allied soldiers.

With seven missions to go before the crew qualified to go home, Stinky was leading a formation of bombers Feb. 9, 1945, against the German city of Weimar. A Nazi ME 262 jet fighter shot up its tail and one engine. The explosive shells hit the fuselage near Fix's waist gunner position, peppering his back with bits of metal and leaving his eyes with chemical burns.

Fix's pilot maneuvered into clouds to hide. The crippled plane landed on a rough Belgian runway.

On the ground safely, Fix got first aid but there were no military quarters for the crew. Somehow, and Fix doesn't know exactly how, they ended up in a Belgian nightclub. The emcee had gone to school in Detroit and was overjoyed to treat Americans who been bombing Germany, whose troops had been forced out of Belgium less than six months earlier.

``He put us up on a stage. We ended up drinking cognac and eating eclairs,'' Fix said.

Back in England, Fix got three days in a hospital, a Purple Heart medal and 13 days off before the crew's next attack on Germany.

The experience was frightening, but Fix said he had confidence in his crew mates, especially the pilots.

Fix, a Long Island, N.Y., native, had joined the Army Air Force in 1942. His real first name is Adolf - the same spelling as the Nazi dictator's first name - which naturally drew kidding from the other men.

Most of the Stinky's crew had been stationed in the United States as military training instructors. But in 1944 they insisted they wanted to be sent to Europe and combat duty. Six of them were married, four already with children.

All 10 survived the war.

``I figure we were a charmed crew,'' Fix said.

Charles F. Bostwick, [phone]

chuck.bostwick(at)dailynews.com

IF YOU GO

Rides aboard the B-17G bomber will be offered for $395 a person - $355 for Experimental Aircraft Association members - today and Wednesday at Fox Airfield, 4555 W. Ave. G.

Tours of the plane on the ground are $6 for adults, $5 for students and $10 for a family. Ground tours are free for children under age 8 and World War II military veterans.

Flights will take place approximately every 45 minutes starting at 9:30 and running until 1:15 p.m. today and tomorrow. Ground tours of the plane will be available each day following the final flight, usually from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.

The plane will be at Van Nuys Airport from Friday through Sunday and in Camarillo on April 26-27.

For information, visit www.b17.org or contact EAA's B-17 Tour Office at [phone].

CAPTION(S):

3 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- color) Fuddy Duddy, a B-17G assigned to the 8th Air Force's 447th Bomb Group in World War II, lands at Fox Field on Monday.

(2) Adie Fix, top row at the center, hangs out with other B-17 flight crew members during World War II.

(3) Adie Fix pushes his walker past Fuddy Duddy, in Lancaster to mark 60 years since the end of the war.

John McCoy/Staff Photographer

Box:

IF YOU GO (see text)