Warbird Information Exchange

The Celebrate Freedom Foundation, which was given the plane by the city of Columbia in 2007, is looking to sell the bomber to a museum or other group that can protect and display it, preferably a museum in the Southeast, said Larry Russell, the foundation’s new executive director.
“It’s a beautiful aircraft,” said Russell, standing next to the plane on a sweltering tarmac outside the historic but crumbling Curtiss-Wright Hangar at Jim Hamilton-L.B. Owens Airport in downtown Columbia.
“But it’s a hunk of junk out here in the middle of nowhere,” he said. “Our mission is to educate children, and this isn’t it.”
Museums in Georgia, North Carolina and other states have shown an interest, but Russell said no one has made a firm offer.
“We think it can bring tens of thousands of dollars,” he said. “It’s a gold mine. We just need to find somebody who can take care of it.”
But critics say the plane is part of South Carolina history and a way should be found to keep it in the Palmetto State.
“It never served anywhere else but here,” said Ron Shelton, who served for 25 years as curator of technology – which included military aviation — for the S.C. State Museum. “It came from the factory to the Columbia Air Base and spent 40 years at the bottom of Lake Greenwood. It should stay here.”
Another critic of the sale has a more personal stake in the plane. Dan Rossman was a student pilot aboard it when it ditched into the lake June 6, 1944 — D-Day.
“I’m disgusted that South Carolina would have so little regard for history that for a few dollars it would lose this,” he said from his home in Roswell, Ga. “What are they going to do next? Sell the Hunley?”
Skunkie was brought to Columbia from Greenwood prior to 1992’s Doolittle Raiders’ 50th anniversary. The Raiders were World War II fliers who bombed Tokyo in B-25s in retaliation for Pearl Harbor. They volunteered for the raid, which many considered a suicide mission, in 1942 at Columbia Air Base.
The plane — which is not directly related to the Raiders — was restored in 1992. The names of Doolittle’s crew were painted below the cockpit, and it became a centerpiece for that reunion and two others since, in 2002 and last year.
However, after the 50th reunion in 1992, the State Museum declined to take the plane.
“It was going to require a building be built at the time,” Shelton said. “It was cost prohibitive. So the plane couldn’t stay there.”
The foundation is faced with much the same plight today, said Richland County Council member Greg Pearce, the council’s liaison to the Hamilton-Owens airport.
What the plane might fetch is unclear.
A working B-25 bomber with spare parts is going for $650,000 on aircraft sales site Trade-A-Place.com, while a flyable B-25 that requires assembly is being offered at $175,000.
Skunkie’s value, however, is only as a historical artifact because of its loose ties with the Doolittle Raiders, said Tony Ritzman, co-owner of California aircraft dealer Aero Trader, who saw the B-25 during the reunion in Columbia.
Damage from the crash and its general poor condition make Skunkie “a piece of junk,” Ritzman said.
Still, Pearce said he was at first “surprised and dismayed that this piece of South Carolina history was for sale.”
But after a meeting with foundation officials Wednesday, he said they don’t have the money to repair the hangar, which was built in 1929 by aviation pioneers Glenn Curtiss and the Wright Brothers. It has hosted legendary fliers such as Doolittle and Amelia Earhart and dignitaries including Franklin Roosevelt.
Repairs to stabilize the hangar are estimated $1 million. A proper renovation is estimated at $3 million.
“And with the budget situation, the county doesn’t have the money either,” Pearce said.
If the plane stays on the tarmac, Pearce said, it will deteriorate from the weather.
“They were given this plane by the city of Columbia, and they want to be good stewards of that aircraft,” he said. “But the only way they can do that is to seek someone who has the money and expertise to restore it.”
Russell said any profit would go toward its annual Celebrate Freedom Festivals, which educates youth on the sacrifices of our service members and honor U.S. troops.
The plane cost $30,000 to restore in 1992, and the funds were raised by Don McElveen of Columbia, founding partner of the CMK Engineering firm, and John Rainey of Camden, an attorney and political activist, as a way to honor the Doolittle Raiders.
McElveen said he would be opposed to the plane leaving the state.
“It’s been here so long,” he said. “It was rebuilt with money given by the good citizens of South Carolina. A better idea is to find another place here to put it. It should have gone into the State Museum.”
Rainey was more direct.
“Let’s buy it,” he said.

• The Doolittle Connection
The B-25C Mitchell bomber housed at Jim Hamilton-L.B. Owens Airport was used as a centerpiece for the 50th Reunion of Doolittle’s Raiders and in two reunions since, in 2002 and last year.
It was recovered from Lake Greenwood in 1983 and restored and brought to Columbia for that purpose.
In World War II, Doolittle led 80 men in 16 B-25s off the deck of the aircraft carrier Hornet on April 18, 1942, and bombed Tokyo in retaliation for the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. The Raiders volunteered for what many considered a suicide mission at the Columbia Air Base.
B-25s were not designed to take off from aircraft carriers. They were small, but versatile land-based bombers. But Doolittle, an aeronautical engineer, stripped down the 16 planes and taught his crews how to take off from the very short flight deck of a carrier. He even removed the machine guns, using black-painted broomsticks instead.
Fifteen of the bombers crash landed in China after the raid because the flight had to leave early and ran out of gas. One diverted to the Soviet Union. Eight of the crews’ members were captured. Three, including Bill Farrow of Darlington, were executed.
Although not directly related to the Doolittle Raid, “Skunkie,” as the Columbia B-25 is called, was painted to resemble the Doolittle planes with the names of Doolittle’s crew under the cockpit.

• The bomber in the lake
Dan Rossman was a 20-year-old pilot from Philadelphia on June 6, 1944.
On the same day American and Allied troops were storming the Normandy beaches in what would be forever known as D-Day, he was cruising the skies around the Upstate training in a B-25C Mitchell bomber tagged GF2 — for Greenville, Fox squadron, Plane 2.
Rossman, Walter “Blackie” Wallace and John Jackson, who had just returned from combat missions in North Africa and Italy, were taking turns flying the plane.
After Rossman’s turn, Jackson said, “You’ve got this knocked,” and took over, offering to show “how we fly in real combat,” Rossman said.
“It was about 4:30 in the afternoon,” Rossman recalled from his home in Roswell, Ga. “We were flying down Lake Greenwood very low. I looked out the window, and there was a fisherman standing in a boat. We were eye to eye.”
Rossman said both props of the planes touched the water and the plane went into the lake.
“When I came to, I was drinking Lake Greenwood,” Rossman said.
No one was killed. “But I took a whole bunch of stitches in my chin. Blackie hit the back of my seat, and his face was split open.”
Jackson, a flight engineer and a fifth person in the plane were not injured.
Rossman was fined $75 and reprimanded, but later flew in combat in the South Pacific.
For history’s sake, he says call the B-25 by its real name – GF2.
“If you call it ‘Skunkie,’ this conversation ends right now,” Rossman said. “That’s no name for an airplane, and I never saw it on that plane.”

Staff writers John O’Connor and Andrew Shain contributed.


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