Published February 1996
Pine Bluff: The three pilots sat in a dark room watching a film about bombers, but this was no briefing before a bombing mission.
Instead, the World War II aviators were gathered downtown at Bill Bettwy’s Community Theater, watching a documentary about the planes they flew.
The pilots—Bill Bettwy, Wilbur West of Pine Bluff and retired Air Force General Elton Lyle, a Pine Bluff native living in Hot Springs—gathered late last month outside the downtown theater where artists David and Susan Kelly-Frye were putting the finishing touches on a mural celebrating Grider Field and aviation history.
Among the World War II planes depicted in the mural on the wall of the Community Theater are the PT-19 that Bettwy flew as a flight instructor at Grider Field, the B-24 bomber that West flew and the B-17 that Lyle flew.
The real reason for the meeting was for Lyle, 79, to show the Kelly-Fryes a replica of the B-17 so it could be completed in the mural.
“It’s a great tribute, not only to the people of Pine Bluff who flew airplanes during the war, but also to the city and the people who have been so interested in aviation,” Lyle said.
Lyle said he finished flight school at Brooks Field in San Antonio, Texas, on 6 December 1941—one day before Pearl Harbor. In January 1942, he was assigned to the 303rd Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, based in Molesworth, England.
He stayed at Molesworth through three tours of duty and 70 missions until the end of the war. By September 1944, Lyle was promoted to commander of the 303rd.
Lyle was among the first pilots to bomb Germany and flew to Berlin five times. He also flew during the invasions of Normandy and southern France.
The B-17 that Lyle flew crashed in 1943 in a mid-air collision on the first mission in which it wasn’t flown by Lyle.
During the most vicious stage of airplane combat of World War II, there were 2,000 planes in the skies over Europe every day, Lyle said. Lyle said 8,000 planes were lost, 26,000 crew members killed and 28,000 crew members captured.
“It was the greatest air battle that there will probably ever be,” Lyle said. “There will probably never again be as many airplanes in combat in the skies.”
When the aerial war with Germany began, the Germans had the best pilots and the American pilots were neophytes.
“By the end of the war, it had reversed. We had the real professionals and they had run out of the old-timers,” Lyle said.
Lyle retired from the Air Force with the rank of general in 1967 and worked as an executive vice-president and general manager of American Northeast Airlines until it was bought by Delta more than 12 years ago.
Since then, Lyle has worked on opening a museum in Savannah, Georgia, that will tell the story of the men in the Eighth Air Force from World War II to Desert Storm. Lyle said retired Air Force General Bill Seawell of Pine Bluff is also helping with fund-raising efforts. The museum should open by May 1996, Lyle said.
Lyle said he sees the mural as a tribute to himself and other pilots who flew in World War II and to the history of aviation.
“My experience in the Eighth Air Force in World War II was the greatest part of my life,” Lyle said. “It’s really exciting to see my old airplane up there.”
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