'This is probably one of the first planes shot at during the attack'

JASPER, Ore. -- Wednesday, December 7 marks the 70th anniversary of the attacks on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese military, and part of that history is still alive in Oregon.

An Interstate Cadet plane was flying over Pear Harbor on that historic day, flown by 23-year-old instructor Cornelia Fort. Fort was giving a flying lesson at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese military attacked.

"She was teaching a student how to fly at John Rodgers Airport in 1941, December 7 during the attack. And she was flying during the attack of the Japanese on Pearl Harbor," said Kent Pietsch, owner of the now-restored Interstate Cadet plane. "This is probably one of the first planes shot at during the attack."

After the Pearl Harbor attacks, Fort went back to California and the plane was untouched for decades.

The plane bounced around from state to state until Kent Pietsch purchased the plane. He enlisted longtime friend and plane restorer Tim Talen from Jasper to rebuild the Interstate Cadet to its original form. Since June, Talen has been working to rebuild the plane.

"For the past 70 years, it's been sitting around in the hangar with no fabric, nothing. People have always wanted to rebuild it but they never got it done," said Pietsch.

However, there's a bit of a mystery about this plane that Pietsch and Talen are still trying to uncover; there are no records their plane was in Hawaii on December 7, 1941. Fort wrote in flight log books she was on a different plane the morning of the Pearl Harbor attacks. The plane number she wrote down was N37345, but as it turns out, N37345 was never in Hawaii that day according to government records.

Pietsch's plane, N37266, was in Pearl Harbor that day, and was the only Interstate Cadet plane owned by Fort's flight school.

"This airplane was indeed there on December 7. It was at John Rodgers airport. It was owned by the flying club that she worked for. Everything fits. That other end number [N37345]? Nothing fits," said Talen.

Fort had flown the N37266 plane on four occasions. On the flight book entry for December 7, 1941 she wrote, "Flight interrupted by Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. An enemy airplane shot at my airplane and missed and proceeded to strafe John Rodgers, a civilian airport. Another airplane machine-gunned the ground in front of me as I taxied back to the hangar."

Talen and Pietsch say perhaps Fort didn't fill out her log book until after the war, and she may have written the wrong plane number on accident.

The Interstate Cadet plane will be in Las Vegas on Wednesday, December 7, 2011 for a national Pearl Harbor commemoration.

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