History takes flight

Ira Jackson (left), 90, talks with the Collings Foundation pilot of the B-24 Liberator before the two took off for a short trip last week. Jackson was a member of a B-24 flight crew in World War II.

World War II veteran enjoys trip on plane from the era

DECATUR – Ira Jackson stepped through the terminal door and onto the tarmac at Pryor Field when his attention was drawn past a couple of antique military aircraft to the B-24 Liberator sitting off to the far left.
For the first time in more than 15 years, Jackson, now 90, was again looking at the plane that served him so well during bombing missions in the South Pacific during World War II.
The B-24 Liberator, owned by the Collings Foundation, is the only one of its kind still flying.
The Collings Found-ation is a non-profit educational group that supports living history events including the Consolidated B-24 Liberator, the B-17 and the P-51 Mustang on the Wings of Freedom Tour that made the trip to Decatur.
The group travels to airports around the country offering 30-minute flights on historic World War II aircraft.
Jackson, who served as a flight engineer during World War II, flew to Shelby County with the Collings group as an honored guest. He was joined by Jim Stephens of Madison, who was a pilot of a B-24 during missions over Nazi Germany.
“She looks good,” Jackson said with a smile as he walked toward the plane that served as his home for more than 35 missions and 400 combat hours in the area near Guadalcanal.
The plane that made the trip to Decatur, now restored to mint condition, was originally abandoned by the Royal Air Force after the war in a bomber graveyard in Khanpur, India. It was then used by the Indian Air Force for more than 20 years before it was finally retired in 1968.
A native of Georgia, Jackson lived in Hartselle for several years until he recently moved to an assisted living facility in Decatur.
Following his discharge from the Air Force, Jackson worked with Lockheed in development until his retirement. He had his hand in the development of every aircraft produced by Lockheed during his career, including the C-130, the Hummingbird and even the U-2.
“When I was 20 years old, I was flying at 140 miles per hour,” Jackson said. “I retired at 600 miles per hour.”
After dreaming of becoming a pilot and being  told that dream would never become a reality, Jackson has spent all of his adult years around aviation.
Jackson was a member of an 11-member crew that was shot down once and ditched into the Pacific Ocean after losing power.
“We weren’t rookies for very long,” Jackson said. “You either grew up fast or you got killed. It was as simple as that.”
As Jackson stood under the wing of the B-24 reminiscing with Stephens, a crowd migrated from the popular P-51 to listen to Jackson’s stories of air battles with Japanese aircraft while on bombing missions that often took 14 hours or more – most with little or no fighter support.
With a thin metal skin covering the B-24’s very basic skeleton, the crew was constantly at risk of enemy attacks.
“Those things aren’t bulletproof,” Jackson said.
Jackson’s crew was shot down in January of 1944 and the B-24 was ditched in the Pacific about 100 miles south of the Solomon Islands.

Ira Jackson with his fellow flight crew. Jackson is in the back row, fourth from the left.

“No B-24 crew had ever survived a water landing before, but we did,” Jackson said. “All 11 of us lived. We didn’t lose a single person.”
The wounded B-24 flew for nearly seven more hours with nearly three feet of the wing gone and much of the rear tail shot away.
“There was just no way you could land that plane in that condition,” Jackson said.
Jackson was just 20 when he joined the Air Force intent on becoming a pilot during the war. He had often seen planes fly overhead as he was growing up and he fell in love with the idea of one day piloting a plane across the blue sky.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t up to the task physically.
“I really envisioned myself as a Red Baron with that scarf blowing in the wind,” Jackson said. “Unfortunately, I passed every test they gave me with the exception of the depth perception test. That pretty much ended my dream of becoming a pilot.”
During the war, most young men who enlisted would be put into infantry divisions. After boot camp, Jackson was the only one of his group to be sent to the air force.
“It was just God’s will that day that I was assigned to the Air Force,” Jackson said. “That was one of the biggest breaks I’ve ever gotten in my life.”
Jackson’s visions of romantic flight were quickly dashed when his crew came uner fire on one of their first missions. As a boy growing up in Georgia, his hunting experience consisted of shooting at rabbits in the woods near his home in south Georgia.
Jackson’s gun training for the B-24 was even more limited, at best. His indoctrination to the war was under fire.
“We would shoot skeet with a pump shotgun for practice,” Jackson said. “That was my gunnery training. I never actually shot a gun air-to-air until the actual Zero was on my tail and it was my job to get him off us.”
Most of the time, the crew was successful in detering enemy aircraft. Sometimes, the group wasn’t so lucky.
Jackson and his crew were forced out of the B-24 once more during their tour after engine problems that might have been caused by an enemy attack necessited a hasty exit out the back hatch into a dark night sky.
“It was so dark, you couldn’t even see your hand if you held it up in front of your face,” Jackson said.
Jackson parachuted onto an island where he landed high in a tree amid a lot of commotion from the SeaBees – naval construction battalions – on the ground.
When it was finally determined that Jackson was an American, he landed on a tarpaulin held by a group of soldiers on the ground.
It was Jackson’s final mission.
Injuries he sustained after being shot down – including a broken bone in his leg – forced doctors to ground him from any further combat missions.
But now nearly 60 years later, Jackson added one more mission to his resume.