The shadow of a B-24 can be seen as it flies over the Blue Ridge Mountains on Monday.
Photo Credit: Rosanne Weber/The News Virginian
WEYERS CAVE, Va. -- As a young girl growing up in Germany during World War II, Helga Caruthers was unaware of the atrocities being committed by the Nazi regime.
“I just knew the bombs, the confusion, the running for shelter,” she said.
As Caruthers later learned of the horrors of the Holocaust, she developed a deep appreciation for the Allied soldiers.
“I feel we owe a humongous ‘hank you’ to the Allied soldiers,” she said, as she and about two dozen onlookers scanned the horizon for WWII bombers.
They were the first to catch a glimpse of a restored B-17, B-24 and P-17 as they flew into Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport on Monday for the Wings of Freedom tour, an annual tribute to WWII planes and pilots organized by the Collings Foundation.
“The allies gave so much,” Caruthers said, “this is something I can put my hands on.”
She recalled losing her home as a first-grader during a bombing in 1942.
So Caruthers and her family fled to a small town in southern Germany.
In the late winter of 1945, she remembers huddling in a neighbor’s silo.
The family had taken in three young German soldiers and given them civilian clothes. The three, like nearly every high school-aged boy, were forced into the German army by older people in the town.
Though the war was over, they feared discovery by German soldiers.
“We would have all been shot for helping a deserter,” Caruthers said.
When the heavy footfall of soldiers echoed throughout the house, however, the boots making the noise turned out to be those of the Allies.
Also among the crowd at the airport was Henry Brewer, 86, a veteran of WWII, Korea and Vietnam.
Brewer, then 16, worked for Western Union when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
“I went to lunch and when I got back, I got orders to take a message to the White House that the Japs had bombed Pearl Harbor,” he said. “When I got back, I was given another message to deliver to the State Department down the road.”
A year later, Brewer joined the Navy and began training pilots in Pensacola, Fla.
He taught pilots to operate fighter planes like the SBD dive bomber.
For Caruthers, this week’s tour represents an opportunity to honor the sacrifice solders like Brewer made.
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