Chris Smith: Over Healdsburg, a sweet old plane salutes a (near) centenarian

Many days since the dawning of the pandemic have been boring and isolated, devoid of anticipation, for 99-year-old Del Tiedeman and his neighbors at a Healdsburg retirement home.

Last Friday, most assuredly, was not one of those days.

Early that afternoon, Tiedeman, a World War II combat pilot, and about 40 other masked and appropriately spaced residents of Healdsburg Senior Living savored sunshine and refreshments near their communal garden alongside Highway 101. All the while, they peered upward, and listened.

Some heard before they spotted a rare beauty of a restored, twin-propeller, 1942 DC-3 airliner low in the clear sky to the north.

The silvery airplane, the pride and joy of the Russian River Valley’s Benovia Winery, dipped its right wing in salute as it rumbled past. Then it circled to the east and made a second pass.

All of that was in honor of Tiedeman, a gracious and humble man who flew just such an aircraft and witnessed awesome and terrible things amid the carnage of the D-Day invasion of Europe and the Allies’ slog toward Hitler’s Germany.

Shielding his eyes from the bright sun with one hand Friday and using the other to help hold up a large, borrowed American flag for the benefit of those aboard “The Spirit of Benovia,” Tiedeman nodded in appreciation.

He said a bit later that in all the years he flew for the U.S. Army Air Corps and then owned a private plane, “I’d never been to a fly-by.

“I thought, how dull! But it wasn’t dull at all. I liked it. It was a heck of a good time!”

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THE AERIAL SALUTE to Tiedeman, whose 100th birthday is June 24, made for a good time, too, for Benovia co-owner Joe Anderson and the others aboard what has to be one of the world’s most grandly restored and upgraded DC-3s.

“I think they saw us!” chief pilot Jeff Coffman declared after the second pass above Highway 101, which flows immediately west of the 110-resident Healdsburg Senior Living.

Anderson, who owns Benovia Winery with his wife, Mary Dewane, said the flight could have been better only had Tiedeman been aboard.

He and pilot Coffman have tried more than once to arrange for the gentle and elegant war veteran to take a ride in the co-pilot’s seat. Before they flew “The Spirit of Benovia” to Normandy last June to take up a spot in a historic formation of DC-3s for a flyover on the 75th anniversary of D-Day, Anderson and Coffman invited Tiedeman along.

Then 98, he was tempted but thought it wise to decline. Aware that Anderson remains keen to get him up for a ride, Tiedeman said late Friday afternoon, “I’d like to have him succeed with that.”

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STURDY AND RELIABLE, the Douglas DC-3 airliner was adapted for military use in World War II and became an indispensable workhorse affectionately dubbed the Gooney Bird by GIs and, by British troops, the Dakota or Dak. The most common wartime variation of the DC-3 was the C-47 Skytrain, outfitted to carry paratroopers and tow gliders with GIs aboard.

On D-Day in 1944, more than 800 C-47s dropped more than 13,000 troops onto the Allied invasion of German-occupied Europe.

During the war, the DC-3 that’s now “The Spirit of Benovia” was modified as a C-53 Skytrooper, a troop and cargo transporter. It flew over the Himalayas to support and supply the fight against Imperial Japan.

The aircraft’s current markings recall its many covert missions in the CIA-owned Civil Air Transport, which aided Taiwan’s Chiang Kai-shek following the Communist takeover of China in 1949.

A year ago, news stories detailed Joe Anderson’s preparations to fly his DC-3 across the Atlantic for formation flyovers to commemorate both the 75th anniversary of D-Day and the 70th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift.

Anderson also told of “Liberation,” a specially labeled 2017 pinot noir that Benovia winemaker, Mike Sullivan, produced to raise money to send veterans, students and others to Normandy for commemoration activities.

He’s now selling the 2018 vintage of the wine and donating a portion of the proceeds to services for military veterans and first responders by the Gary Sinise Foundation. Actor-philanthropist Sinise played the role of Lt. Dan Taylor in “Forrest Gump.”

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SOMEONE WHO read about Anderson’s historic airplane introduced him to former Army Air Corps pilot Tiedeman.

The vintner, who loves aviation and honors veterans, was thrilled to learn that Tiedeman had dropped paratroopers from a C-47 onto Normandy during the invasion, and throughout the liberation of Europe and the Battle of Bulge had flown men and equipment in and casualties out.

About this time last year, Anderson had the then 98-year-old vet out to the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport to take a look at “The Spirit of Benovia.” Tiedeman shook his head in wonder as he took a seat at the controls he knew so well a lifetime ago.

Anderson and pilot Coffman invited him to come along on the flight to Europe. He said he’d love to go, but the journey would be too much for him.

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THE OLD VET and Benovia’s Anderson have since become tight friends.

Aware that Tiedeman will soon turn 100 and because of the pandemic is stuck at his retirement home, Anderson conceived the idea of Friday’s aerial salute.

Shortly after noon, pilot Coffman and co-pilot Paul Bazeley welcomed aboard at the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport Anderson and about a dozen members of the vintner’s family.

The DC-3 took off to the south and continued to San Francisco Bay, where it flew just west of Berkeley and Oakland, then turned west, giving the passengers breathtaking views of the San Francisco skyline and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Then it headed back north, generally following Highway 101 all the way to Healdsburg, where Coffman pulled a sweeping U-turn and dropped low enough for Del Tiedeman and his neighbors at Healdsburg Senior Living to see the DC-3 clearly.

As it appeared, some of the seniors and their caregivers clapped and cheered.

“There’s been so little going on” because of the pandemic and the shelter-in-place orders, said Tony Fisher, a staff leader at the care facility. “This was a big deal for them.”

There’s no doubt the fly-by made long-ago Army Air Corps pilot Tiedeman’s day.

“I never tire of looking at an airplane,” he said a bit later Friday afternoon. “Especially when it’s flying.”

You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 707 521-5211 or chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.