Wings & Wheels to feature pilots WWII veterans to participate in museum event

OWLS HEAD – Some wartime fighter pilots will be flying high this weekend with their feet firmly on the ground.

Four World War II veterans will be on hand at the Owls Head Transportation Museum’s Wings & Wheels Spectacular to talk about their experiences behind the throttle of the F4U Corsair fighter planes. One such aircraft was flown in this week from Rochester, N.H., for the museum’s event.

The feature attraction is the F4U Corsair with its gull-wing design, which distinguishes it from other World War II fighter planes. The stars of the Wings exhibit, however, are the men who flew the dangerous missions during wartime.

The Wheels piece of the event showcases classic cars, antique bicycles and AtmosFair, which mixes yesterday’s ideas with today’s technology in the form of vehicles powered by alternative energy.

The fighter pilots: Dick Sheppe, 80, of Owls Head; Roy Huval, 83, of Camden; and John Stone, 80, and John Woods, 88, both of Harpswell.

They all flew Corsairs.

For Roy Huval, flying a Corsair altered his direction in life.

In 1941, he joined the Navy to become a radioman, but when his superiors saw his high test scores, he was offered a crack at the U.S. Naval Academy. He never ended up there, but he did wind up a Navy officer with a permanent commission. He retired with 26 years of service.

With only 217 hours behind the throttle of a Corsair, involving 25 landings and three catapult shots on the aircraft carrier USS Princeton, the high school dropout climbed to the rank of Navy commander. He credits his “permanent” commission as an officer to his experience flying Corsair fighter planes.

“Degrees have nothing to do with being a good fighter pilot,” he said. “The brief experience was eminently important for the rest of my life.”

After awhile, the Navy traded the Corsairs for F8F planes known as Bearcats, Huval said, noting the new planes were no match for the Corsair.

The Corsair “felt stuck to the carrier” when it landed on a flight deck, he said, whereas the Bearcats “bounced around.”

This weekend, each of the former fighter pilots will tell a few war stories and talk about their experiences behind the throttle of the 2,000-plus horsepower engines that power Corsairs. Approximately 12,500 Corsairs were manufactured, Sheppe said, noting that some of the R-2800 Pratt & Whitney engines were “deliberately souped up for the mission.”

Gil Merriam, a Rockland historian and co-author of the book “Home Front on Penobscot Bay,” wrote about the role Corsair planes and pilots played in the midcoast during the war.

In 1943, Corsair pilots trained at the U.S Naval Auxiliary Air Facility, now the Knox County Regional Airport. During World War II and the Korean War, the facility was used by pilots who practiced “touch and go” and carrier deck landings on Runway 17, where the museum grounds are now located.

On Wednesday, Merriam recalled watching the pilots training while he was perched in a neighbor’s tree on Mechanic Street in Rockland, where he lived as a boy

“Boy they used to fly low at times,” Merriam said, noting he was only 9 or 10 then. “For a kid that age, I was fascinated.”

One of the high points of John Woods’ life was flying a Corsair for a mere two hours.

“It was so responsive, so sensitive, so high performance,” he said. “It was exquisite … beautiful.”

Gates open for the show at 9:30 a.m. For information, call 594-4418 or visit the Web site at www.owlshead.org.