I wonder what happened to...
Bob Morgan
The triumphant tour eventually turned sour because, as Morgan put it, ‘It was too much of a good thing. There was too much wine, women and song. And not necessarily in that order!
During the Bond Tour, Bob Morgan received an invitation to the Boeing Assembly Plant in Wichita. It was there he found out the USAAF had a new aircraft - a bomber bigger, more powerful and capable of flying much higher and faster than the Memphis Belle. This was the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. They were slated for duty in the Pacific. A B-29 named Enola Gay would make history by carrying the first atomic bomb to be dropped in the war on Hiroshima. ‘They let me climb into one of those planes and sit in the pilot’s seat’ said Morgan. ‘That did it. Here I was, surrounded by all that luxury in a pressurized cabin. That huge body. I just had to fly it’.
Morgan volunteered for a second tour of duty in the Pacific and began pulling strings to get into the seat of one of those B-29s. The only member of the Memphis Belle’s crew who would go with him was Vince Evans, the bombardier. According to the Morgan/Powers book, it seems that Vince Evans had got for himself a new Hollywood bride called Jean Ames. The only problem was, was that Vince had not bothered to get himself divorced from his previous wife, Dinny whom he had married in Walla Walla before leaving for England. ‘J.P’ Quinlan also volunteered, thinking he would be flying with Morgan, but somehow how things got SNAFU’d, and he ended up with another on another B-29. Vince Evans decided to head for the Pacific until things cooled down, and people stopped throwing the word ‘bigamist’ around.
Major Robert Morgan would also make another bit of history when he became the pilot to lead the first B-29 bombing attack on Tokyo. His B-29 would be called Dauntless Dotty in honour of another girl, this one called Dorothy Johnson. Bob Morgan turned her into wife #4.
Bob Morgan’s B-29 Dauntless Dotty waits another payload of 500lb bombs.
After the war, Morgan left the Armed Forces on September 9 1945, with some two thousand and thirty-five flying hours under his belt and returned to his native Asheville. He did, however remain in the Air Force Reserve, gaining the rank of Colonel.
For a time, along with his elder brother David, he operated the Morgan Manufacturing furniture factories that had belonged to his father. Bob Morgan stayed in contact with Vince Evans, who was now making his mark in Hollywood. It was though Vince’s contacts that Bob Morgan is supposed to have oh-so-nearly gone to work for entrepreneur film-maker, pioneer aviator and famed billionaire Howard Hughes, for Vince offered to get Bob a job as a commercial pilot working for Hughes’ Trans World Airlines - the famed TWA. But it was not to be. For a time Bob Morgan was an automobile dealer, selling the Volkswagen Beetles so beloved by a generation of Americans. No matter that they had been made by his one-time enemies in Germany! In the beloved hills of his native state, Bob Morgan and Dorothy would rear their four children Sandra Lea, Robert Jnr, Harry and Peggy.
Dorothy was a home-maker and happy stay-at-home. Bob Morgan had ‘itchy feet’, travelling around the US for Morgan Manufacturing. He talked the company into buying an aircraft - an Army-surplus BT-15, which he flew along with a number of other machines. In December 1956 he had a close call while the ‘company’ aircraft was in the hangar undergoing maintenance. ‘I probably came closer to getting killed in a private plane than I ever did flying combat in Europe. I was flying a twin Cessna and we were going duck hunting on the East Coast. The weather was just horrible. It was in December. We ran into ice, sleet, everything. I had two friends in the back seat and another friend of mine was in the co-pilot’s seat. We were loaded. We took off and climbed to 6,000 feet. I thought we would break through it but we didn’t. The ice was building up on the wings and then the carburettors began icing up. I pulled all the carburettor heat we had, but it didn’t help. Both engines quit. I knew we had to come down. We had been over the mountains, and I didn’t know where we were. Coming down, we finally broke out of the clouds at 500 feet with both engines dead. It had to be some kind of miracle. Right under me was a grass landing strip. I couldn’t have flown any further because of the dead engines. It was Hendersonville, North Carolina. I made a dead stick landing with both engines dead. Somebody was really looking out for me that day’.
Throughout the 1950s he and Dorothy had their ups and downs, as did many other couples. They would break up, then make up, only to separate again. Business trips took Bob down to Memphis to visit a plant affiliated to the Morgan Manufacturing Company. While there, Bob called Margaret. And visited. ‘...for a brief sad time, our romance was rekindled again. We saw each other a few times. Arranged meetings in various places. Wrote letters, loved, argued. It was soon over’.
Bob Morgan regularly passed through Memphis, often paying visits to both his Memphis Belles. This is
thought to be the 1967 reunion.
Eventually, with the kids grown up, he and Dorothy came to a parting of ways. They were divorced on May 24 1979. Bob had already met and romanced another - Asheville realtor broker and widow with four children, Elizabeth Thrash. He was married to wife #5 in June 1979. He took Elizabeth to England three times, the first as a belated honeymoon that took in the signing of a batch of prints produced from a painting of the Memphis Belle by aviation artist Robert Taylor.
The second was in 1989 to watch the filming and participate in the publicity for Catherine Wyler and David Puttnam’s film. Eight surviving crewmembers and their wives flew over and a good time was had by all - however, despite the crewmembers offering suggestions regarding authentic dialogue and detail, film director Michael Caton-Jones declined their assistance. The result, as Bob Morgan said in masterly understatement was something that was ‘...historically innacurate’. Morgan liked to quote one reviewer: ‘The clichés dropped like bombs!’ Their third trip to London was to attend the film premiere. Sadly, Elizabeth contracted lung cancer, and passed away in January 1991.
Some of the Memphis Belle’s crew and their partners in 1989. Right to left: Jim Verinis, Bob Hanson, Bill Winchell, Joe Giambrone, Bob Morgan, Chuck Leighton and Eugene Atkins. They are seen in front of the original Control Tower, at the time a Museum.
On the aviation lecture circuit Bob Morgan - now 72 - met Linda Dickerson, a lady who had been doing Public Relations work for David Tallichet, the owner of the B-17 that had stood in for the Memphis Belle in the movie. Dickerson was also acting as a freelance publicity agent for members of the crew. They met in April 1991 at the Sun’ n Fun Fly In at Lakeland Florida. Bob romanced and won her, then 47 year old Linda became wife #6 at a ceremony performed under the nose of the Memphis Belle at Mud Island on August 29 1992. The bride was given away by Brigadier General Paul W. Tibbets Jnr, the man who piloted the B-29 Enola Gay over Hiroshima with Jim Verninis acting as best man.
Not everyone was happy that the ceremony was about to take place. As Joy G Wilson of Memphis said at the time; ‘I feel strongly that this coming wedding to be held under the wing of the famed bomber is an affront to the memory of Margaret Polk. - a cheap ploy for publicity for Col. Morgan and in extremely poor taste. I do not agree that ‘Margaret would appreciate the idea’. Having known Margaret and having said this, I feel much better!’
Bob Morgan and wife #6 in front of the Memphis Belle at Mud Island on August 29th 1992.
Bob Morgan and his wife continued on the lecture circuit, often attending twenty or thirty a year. They came over to England in 1993, and again in 1997 to attend the opening of the American Air Museum at Duxford. That was not the only event. They visited Bassingbourn, lectured in the local area and visited Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother at Sandringham.
Bob Morgan’s ‘Return to Bassingbourn’ were highly orchestrated media events. Morgan and his wife with Lt. Colonel Jerome Church RRF, OBE, Commanding Officer of Bassingbourn Barracks as the old airfield had become. The media and enthusiasts responded well to all the hype and were out in force to see and meet the star of the show!
Bob Morgan reflects on memories of fallen comrades in the Chapel of Remembrance at the American Military Cemetery at Madingley near Cambridge.
Here is a good as place as any to clear up another point - the crew never wore jackets with the Petty Girl artwork and name on the back - that was something dreamed up for Catherine Wyler’s 1990 movie!
In April 1999 he was invited to fly a Boeing B-52 at Barksdale Air Force Base, Shreveport, LA and in October 1999, Morgan was invited to fly a B-1B Bomber at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia. Robins subsequently named one of its B-1’s ‘Memphis Belle’ and painted the new noseart on in February, 2000.
On April 22 2004 Bob Morgan attended the airshow at Asheville Regional Airport. Whilst there, he fell and was rushed to the Mission Memorial Hospital where he was diagnosed to have suffered a fractured neck. His condition deteriorated and was eventually taken off life support systems. He passed away on May 15. Bob Morgan’s ashes are buried in the Western North Carolina Veterans Cemetery, Black Mountain, about 18 miles east of his hometown of Asheville where, following the ashes internment, a B-52, B-17 and a P-51 did flypasts in tribute.
No comments:
Post a Comment