Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma
Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma
Louie Neese flew this B-24, which is seen in front of a B-17, for 4 and one-half hours in his eighties, while the plane was touring parts of the U.S. as the sole surviving flying B-24.
Louie Neese stands underneath a B-24 in 1945.
Louie Neese flies a plane in virtual reality.
Louie Neese poses for a photo in May 2018.
Ronald Shattuck
Special to the Village News
My dear friend and neighbor in Bonsall, Louie Neese, passed away Aug. 15. He was 95. I had the personal honor of assisting Neese with his memoirs and want to share some of his memories with everyone.
Born in Amarillo, Texas, Sept. 17, 1922, Neese's earliest memory was wanting to be a pilot. The first time he ever saw an airplane close-up, it was because two Jenny biplanes had crashed near his church on Sunday; the pilots survived. He grabbed a couple of broken pieces from that incident and had his older brother screw them together crosswise to form the shape of a plane.
At age five, he stood with his dad outside a country store and listened to the radio broadcast as it announced that Charles Lindbergh had just landed in Paris. As a teen, he did everything in his power to hang around airplanes, and once he was lucky enough to catch a ride in one.
At age 12 in 1935, he spied two ladies sitting alone together at a Fred Harvey lunch counter in Amarillo, Texas. It was Amelia Earhart and Jackie Cochrane on their way to an air race. He talked with them for a while and got their autographs on a scrap of paper.
After World War II broke out and he became old enough to enlist, he signed up for pilot training and eventually graduated as a 2nd lieutenant in the Army Air Corps as a B-24 pilot.
Unfortunately, he was severely injured as a passenger in a motorcycle accident. He was due to have his leg amputated, but the very Army doctor who was on the famous Jimmy Doolittle raid over Japan and who saved the life of the pilot who later wrote the book "30-Seconds Over Tokyo" happened to pass through the hospital where Neese lay and stopped to save his leg.
But, because of the injury, Neese was held back from combat and instead was made into a test pilot for problematic or repaired B-24s. The war ended, and most of his fellow pilots were discharged.
As a civilian Neese continued his interest in aviation, eventually owning a Cessna 172, which he flew out of Torrance Airport until he retired to the San Diego area.
He became an avid Microsoft Flight Simulation aficionado, recently switching over to X-Plane 11 and flying via virtual reality with his Oculus headset. It was a hobby he shared with his son Jerry Neese who is a pilot as well.
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