Veteran finds answer to WWII mystery

For more than 60 years, Alvia “Alvie” Leighton, 95, wondered what happened to a B-24 Liberator aircraft that never returned from a mission to the base in Australia during World War II.

Thanks to a book ordered over the Internet, he got the answer just a year ago. Leighton was relieved to find out it had nothing to do with the maintenance he had just performed on the plane as a member of the 320th squadron of the 90th “Jolly Roger” Bomb Group.

“The wings iced up,” he said.

One of the oldest surviving World War II veterans in the valley, Leighton lives in Kalispell with Florence, his wife of 69 years. He started life in North Dakota but moved to Ronan at age 7 with his parents, two brothers and a sister.

“I’m the oldest and the only one left,” he said. “I lost my brother about nine months ago.”

On the day before Veterans Day, he sat down with his 90th Bomb Group history book, flipped open to a picture and read the banner pictured at a reunion.

“Jolly Roger, the best damn heavy bomb group in the world,” he said with a smile.

The war started for Leighton at age 25 in 1941 with a draft notice from the Selective Service. He recalled that he was drafted in the fourth round.

Hoping to gain some control over his military destiny, Leighton and a buddy went to a recruiter who advised them to take an aptitude test and, if they passed, they could enlist for four years and go to the Army Air Force.

He followed the recruiter’s advice, passed the test and soon went to aircraft maintenance school at Sheppard Field in Texas to start a one-year training program in October 1941. Things changed with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

“They said, ‘You guys have got to go to school seven days a week,’” he said. “They got us out of there in nine months.”

He was sent to Barksdale Field in Louisiana to join a maintenance crew as part of the newly activated 90th Bomb Group of the 5th Air Force. Leighton was assigned to the 320th, one of four squadrons.

Before long, Leighton found his name listed as an engineer on a flight crew — the member responsible for maintenance on the ground and in the air.

At that point, he had never been off the ground in an airplane in his life.

“I pretty near panicked,” Leighton said. “My God, my name was on the manifest.”

His boss went with him on the flight of the huge B-24 Liberator, the biggest airplane of its time. He recalls the behemoth rattling and shaking as it rumbled into the sky.

“I adapted pretty quickly,” he said. “But I’m color blind, so they took me off flight status.”

More training followed at Greenville, S.C., where Florence, his sweetheart from Ronan, came to visit him. They ended up getting married in July 1942 before he was shipped to Hawaii then on to the Iron Range of North Australia. 

Leighton will never forget their first day in Australia in November 1942. It was 1 a.m. when a B-24 took off with 500 pounds of bombs and began belching blue flames out of two engines.

The pilot tried to land on the still primitive runway but crashed instead, killing many people and damaging several other aircraft.

“That was a poor start,” he said.

Leighton still recalls talking to the flight crew of the B-24 that vanished. He said the men had a bad feeling about the mission, so he offered to provide a mechanical excuse to avoid the flight.

“The crew talked it over among themselves and decided to go,” he said.

When they didn’t return when their fuel was exhausted, Leighton knew a disaster had transpired. He wondered for years if he had made some error that caused their demise.

His Jolly Roger 90th Bomber Group book provided the answer on a chart of aircraft lost. The reason clearly stated the plane’s wings had iced up.

For Leighton, it was a relief long overdue.

“You would think that they would have told me that,” he said, shaking his head.

From Australia, his squadron moved on to Port Moresby, New Guinea, in January 1943. As the Japanese were pushed back again, the squadron advanced to the Philippines.

Leighton was headed to Iwo Jima when he heard about the atomic bombs dropped on Japan.

“I was on Iwo Jima when I heard the war ended,” he said. “It was wonderful.”

The representatives of the Emperor of Japan landed on the island not four blocks from him on their way to the surrender ceremony held on the USS Missouri in September 1945. On Oct. 8,  Leighton arrived home to the Polson area, where he spent a career as a saw filer and lived for about 50 years in Big Arm.

He and Florence sold their lakefront property in 2006 and moved to Kalispell, where they will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary in July 2012.

“We never had kids, but we’ve had a wonderful life,” he said. “I’d do it all again.”

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.