For veterans, Honor Flight is 'everything'

It took 70 years for John Roberts to build a model of the USS Alabama.

Well, not really. He put the ship together initially as a 15-year-old in 1938. The plans had been printed in an edition of Popular Science. The ship found its way to a museum in 1942, when Roberts went off to the war and became a test pilot.

When he came back three years later, he reclaimed the ship and vowed to refurbish it because it had become “ratty” in his absence.

Related:

Saturday: Find out what it takes to get an Honor Flight off the ground.

Sunday: Dothan Eagle reporter Lance Griffin and photographer Max Oden travel to Washington with the Wiregrass Honor Flight veterans and report on their experience.

To help out: Fundraising efforts are continuing for future Honor Flights. For more information visit www.wiregrasshonorflight.org.

They stayed there for 53 years.

Roberts bought a computer in 1998, and, through an Internet search, found a copy of the USS Alabama plans from a man in Nova Scotia. He began putting the ship back together in 2000.

He finished on July 4, 2008.

It sits on a table in his living room, a testimony to precision, perspiration and perseverance.

He loved building model ships and airplanes. A model of the B-17 he flew in World War II sits in the corner of his living room, just above the television.

While the finishing of the Alabama by Roberts may have been the end of a 70-year love affair with the model, his trip on Saturday to the World War II Memorial will be the culmination of a long journey that started 67 years ago.

Roberts was a test pilot for the Army, flying planes that would soon be used in combat all over the world. He was among the first to fly jets. Compared to the old turboprops, flying jets felt like flying a very fast glider, Roberts said. He flew the B-17, B-24 and L-4, among others.

By December of 1944, with the United States on its way to victory and little need for test pilots, Roberts processed out. He sought to continue an aviation career, but said the major airlines were not impressed with his 750 hours of test plane flying. He wound up pursuing tool design and later enjoyed a 30-year career with the St. Regis Paper Company.

Saturday, he and 89 other World War II veterans — most of whom reside in the Wiregrass — will be flown to Washington D.C. to visit the World War II Memorial. The veterans are flying free of charge as part of the Wiregrass Honor Flight program.

Wiregrass Honor Flight has been raising money to fund the chartered flight. Another flight is scheduled for Sept. 19, and a third may be necessary. The cost of each charter is about $65,000 and fundraising efforts continue.

Roberts will be accompanied by his son, Max, a Vietnam veteran.

Roberts said he has been “overcome with emotion” since learning about the trip. For Roberts and most of the veterans, it will mark their first visit to the memorial, which wasn’t built until 2004.

“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry,” Roberts said.

The veterans on the first Honor Flight range in age from 79 to 98. They will leave from the Dothan Regional Airport at 7:30 a.m., visit the Memorial
and Arlington Cemetery, and return to Dothan in the evening.

Max Roberts said the Wiregrass Honor Flight is one of the grandest gestures the community can do for its World War II veterans. He said visiting the Memorial with his father will be one of the greatest experiences of his life.

“This means everything,” he said.