IN THE DAYS AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, those of us living along the flight path for Reagan National Airport couldn’t help noticing the preternatural quiet as civilian air traffic was grounded. That eerie calm wouldn’t last long. It was replaced by the deep-throated exhaust notes of F-16s, which have been patrolling the airspace over the nation’s capital ever since–a sound that calms some and puts others on edge. Understandably, then, when the Air Force decided to send a low-flying B-52 bomber over Arlington National Cemetery last week, to pay final respects to a fallen pilot before his burial, care was taken to reassure Arlingtonians in advance that the eight-engined behemoth flying 1,000 feet overhead would be there for purely ceremonial purposes. A number of stories were written in the local press publicizing the rare flyover (only the third by a B-52) and the man who would be honored by it. That is how thousands of people came to know the remarkable story of Robert J. Hymel, a retired B-52 pilot who was killed at his Pentagon desk on September 11 and laid to rest on October 13 after a last dip of the wings from his fellow pilots. And that is how many of those same people, though they didn’t know Lt. Col. Hymel, nonetheless ended up crowding the roads and grounds in the vicinity of Arlington National Cemetery on a Saturday afternoon–there to pay homage to the man and to the B-52. And there also, I suspect, to participate vicariously in the B-52 runs over Afghanistan. Which probably explains why, when the plane finally appeared, magnificent and deadly looking with its smoky contrail, not a few of us wished it had flown even lower and louder and slower, and been altogether more menacing than it was. The bomber rapidly receded from our view. Not so, the story of Hymel’s bravery. He was the co-pilot of a B-52 flying a mission over North Vietnam on December 26, 1972. The plane was hit by a missile over Hanoi, his wife, Beatriz “Pat” Hymel, explained to a Washington Post reporter, and limped back to its base in Thailand, where it crash-landed. “The crew had elected not to bail out,” Mrs. Hymel told the Post, “because it had lost contact with the plane’s wounded gunner. When the plane crashed, the gunner managed to get out and survived.” Hymel himself was dragged badly injured from the burning plane. The other three crew members died in the crash. This story–of a flight crew that risked death rather than abandon a wounded comrade–is reminiscent of the moving story told by Ronald Reagan at a 1983 ceremony honoring recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor. President Reagan recalled having read a citation honoring a B-17 commander, who rather than bail out and leave behind a wounded gunner, sat “down on the floor. He took the boy’s hand and said, ‘Never mind, son. We’ll ride it down together.’ Congressional Medal of Honor, posthumously awarded.” Reagan was often ridiculed for having confused real life with a World War II movie, “Wing and a Prayer.” Except that the incident he described bears less resemblance to that movie than it does to the true story of an Aurora, Illinois, B-17 crew member, who in 1944 did receive the Medal of Honor, posthumously awarded. Here is part of the official citation for Second Lt. Walter E. Truemper: “The aircraft on which 2nd Lt. Truemper was serving as navigator was attacked by a squadron of enemy fighters with the result that the co-pilot was killed outright, the pilot wounded and rendered unconscious, the radio operator wounded and the plane severely damaged. Nevertheless, 2nd Lt. Truemper and other members of the crew managed to right the plane and fly it back to their home station, where they contacted the control tower and reported the situation. 2nd Lt. Truemper and the engineer volunteered to attempt to land the plane. Other members of the crew were ordered to jump, leaving 2nd Lt. Truemper and the engineer aboard. After observing the distressed aircraft from another plane, 2nd Lt. Truemper’s commanding officer decided the damaged plane could not be landed by the inexperienced crew and ordered them to abandon it and parachute to safety. Demonstrating unsurpassed courage and heroism, 2nd Lt. Truemper and the engineer replied that the pilot was still alive but could not be moved and that they would not desert him. They were then told to attempt a landing. After two unsuccessful efforts their plane crashed into an open field in a third attempt to land. 2nd Lt. Truemper, the engineer and the wounded pilot were killed.” The remarkable thing about the bravery of a Lt. Truemper or a Lt. Col. Hymel is not how rare it is, but how much of it there turns out to be, once you start looking for it. We shall all, I think, need to be a bit more brave in the years ahead. But this can be learned. Just as some of us are now learning to love the sound of F-16s in the night sky. October 29, 2001 – Volume 7, Number 7
