MOUNT VERNON — A large crowd gathered Monday afternoon to welcome a restored World War II bomber landing at the Mount Vernon Outland Airport.

The Yankee Lady is a Boeing B-17 bomber also known as the Flying Fortress. The aircraft was a U.S. heavy bomber used during World War II and had a unique feature of a belly turret where a “belly gunner” operated one of the 12 .50 caliber machine guns on the plane.

My grandfather was a belly gunner on a B-17 during the war and was literally shot out of the plane behind enemy lines. He was captured and held at a concentration camp for the remainder of the war before being liberated by the Allies.

This particular plane — Yankee Lady —  was sold in 1959 to a private buyer and in the 1960s it was used to spray crops in Arizona. But in 1969 the plane found its way to Hollywood where it was used in the epic war film about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

With the chilling wind out at the airport Monday, crew member Ted Drews from Michigan commented on how cold it is in the plane and noted that during the war over Europe, crews were often exposed to temperatures of 30 to 35 degrees below zero.