Warbird Information Exchange

I received a message while I was out the other night from a friend letting me know about the death of a friend of ours.

Alot of people in the Northeast have met Paul "Russ" Bergen over the years. He was a crewmember on Chris Peatridge's C-1A when I met him,
then going back to Flying with Dave Tallichet's B-17 and several of the Atlantic Warbirds airplanes, including the Miss Piggy C-47, C-54 and C-45.

Mr. Bergen passed away back in June.


Russ as we all knew him had some great stories, but his own was the most amazing of all of them. He joined the US Cavalry in 1937, and was sent to man a horse drawn machine gun carriage on the Mexican Border. His discharge date was supposed to be Dec. 7th, 1941. They didnt let him go. Being a smaller guy he was chosen to be a Tail Gunner in B-25's somewhere in North Africa. The crews picked up their brand new aircraft and off they went only to wait two more months at their destination for their ground support equipment to arrive by boat. With everything else going on the boys got restless and had to get into the action so they would grab missions while they were waiting and even better, they didnt want to lose their "Flight Pay" so they did not want to move up to Master Seargent and they kept flying missions. 52 missions and 2 bailouts later they were on their way home! Russ and another Tail Gunner that was in the bunk underneath him in training were the only two to fly 52 missions.


I have some great memories from airshows all over New England with Russ. He was an 80 year old kid, that would fly up and down ladders faster than all of us. He had an incredible sense of humor, a great work ethic, and loved what he was doing. Volunteering his time and stories anytime he was asked, we even jumped in my truck one night and drove to Burlington, VT to pick up a pair of drop tanks for Chris. "What the Heck, Lets Go!" Some of my favorite lines came from this guy! If I remember right the nickname "The Great White Father" was given to Chris from Russ. Along with "Skippy" Another great story was from a small airshow in upstate NY years ago (Plattsburg) was from our night out on the town in Montreal and we were all playing it up that it was Russ' 100th birthday. They were making announcements on PA systems at bars all over the place and offering him drinks at every stop. It was wonderful.
In recent years we only ran into him from time to time at airshows we attended, like Reading 2003, we walked up to the back door of the "Belle" and Russ was assisting anybody coming out of the airplane. I asked how he was doing. The usual answer was "I'm on the right side of the grass".
We ran into him at Fitchburg, MA and he mentioned he had a bit of cancer removed and was OK. In the past year we were told he wasnt doing well and I heard tonight from a friend that the chemo was making him miserable and he was going to stop it at some point after an April phone call to Russ.

Another one of our friends has gone west and will be missed.
Thanks Russel you were the best!

_________________
"Hindsight is usually 20% off!"