Editor's note: During the 1997 IDPA Fly-in, when we were all waiting for the bus to take us back to West Bend, Wisconsin, from the big EAA gathering at Oshkosh, Bonham Cross was pointed out to me. "He's from Minnetonka, Minnesota, he's a member of IDPA, and he was a combat pilot," I was told.

I introduced myself to him. "I'm told you flew in combat," I said. "Yes," he replied with a smile. "I flew B-25s in World War II."

"How did you lose your hearing?" I asked.

"I flew B-25s in World War II," he repeated with a bigger grin.

A year later, during the 1998 fly-in at Kerrville, Texas, Bonham and his wife, Marie, gave me a ride from the airport to our motel in town. I was intrigued to see the microphone apparatus Bonham had cobbled up from Radio Shack parts so that he could listen to the car radio and at the same time talk with Marie in the passenger seat as he drove. This was, I thought, not a man to let hearing loss spoil his enjoyment of life.

As a child, Bonham Cross (pictured at right) lost a bit of his hearing to scarlet fever, but as a young man he managed to sneak through the physical exam for the Army Air Forces, where he became a pilot and flew 1,362 hours in military aircraft. Of those hours, he spent 920 (730 as pilot in command) flying the North American B-25 Mitchell, sitting close between two huge, yammering radial engines that gave the airplane a well-deserved reputation as "the noisiest I could have flown in, and without hearing protection!" Naturally the experience robbed Bonham of even more hearing. On top of that, he contracted malaria while in North Africa, and during a second bout with the disease a medical officer gave him strong doses of quinine, the possible aftereffects of which includes hearing loss. After the war he attended college, then spent 13 years as a newspaper photographer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, after which he spent 21 years in the paper's advertising department. During that time he learned sign language as a personal challenge in order to better communicate with the deaf printers in the paper's composing room.

After he retired, he became active in a number of organizations serving the deaf and hard of hearing: the Hearing Society of Minnesota, the Minneapolis Metro Regional Service Center for the Hearing Impaired, the Minnesota Commission Serving Deaf and Hard of Hearing, the Minnesota Association of Deaf Citizens (of which he is a life member), and the Self-Help for the Hard of Hearing Minnesota Chapter. He won a 1997 national Spirit of SHHH Award for his work with the group. He recently became a member of the board at D E A F, which serves various educational purposes for the deaf. He also served on a legislative coalition of the deaf which, as he describes it, "was fighting to get laws passed at the Minnesota Legislature which ended up providing a message relay system, distribution of TTYs, etc., and laws upgrading the quality of interpreter services in public schools."

Editor's note: And to think that Bonham shyly demurred when asked to give his profile for the 1998 IDPA Yearbook! "I hesitate to do so because none of my (more than 2,000) flying hours has been as a deaf pilot," he protested. "My last couple hundred hours were flown as a hard of hearing pilot with hearing waivers. The most recent waiver prevents me from making use of the commercial rating, which I have never used anyway. But with a specially assembled amplifier device, I was able to make use of my instrument rating on several occasions. Anyway, I would be uncomfortable if my record and picture were to be included with those of deaf pilots who have overcome bigger obstacles than I have ever faced." I asked Clyde Smith what he thought about Bonham's reluctance to be in the yearbook, and he instantly agreed that Bonham just couldn't wiggle out of it. IDPA does not discriminate among degrees of hearing loss. Bonham is one of us, period.

Bonham's World War II career is fascinating. "In taking a look at my logbook just now," he said, "I note that I learned to fly in the Stearman PT-17, then the Vultee BT-13A, then the twin-engine Cessnas and the Curtiss AT-9, followed by the AT-6 for gunnery training."

We all remember the first 300-mile cross-country trip we had to take for our private pilot certificates, but Bonham outdid us all with a 9,800-mile cross-country in 1944 from Miami, Florida, to the island of Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea via South America, Ascension Island, Liberia, Marrakech, Casablanca, Algiers and Philipville in eastern Algeria.

From the base in Corsica, Bonham flew 70 missions over Italy and southern France. He had learned to fly the B-25B and C models and flew a G model in that cross-country from Miami to Corsica. (In the B, C and D models, the .50 caliber turret guns were located farther to the rear of the plane than in later models.)

"The G model was a modification of the D model," Bonham said. "The G replaced the bombardier's glass "office" with a 75 mm cannon and a noseful of .50 caliber machine guns, along with additional machine guns fastened alongside the nose on the outside. The bombardier had little to do except stand in the area behind the pilots and reload the cannon after each firing.

"In combat the plane was set up so that with buttons on the control wheel I could fire the cannon or all the forward-firing machine guns or open the bomb bays and drop the bombs myself. At low altitudes the bombs were used for skip-bombing' while flying very close to the water. These missions consisted of four B-25s and half a dozen P-39 fighters that were there to 'protect' us.

"Our plane was also part of missions flown between 9,500 and 12,500 feet as part of much larger formations of 18, 24, 36 and 48 planes, and a couple of times, 72-plane formations made up of basic boxes of six airplanes each (three planes, one on each wing of the box leader, followed by three more in a similar manner close and just below the first three aircraft). In these higer altitude formations, I flew off the wing of the box leader.

"The lead ship of each box was a regular D model with a bombardier. Because my bombardier was a trained bombardier officer of no great value to my plane, he was transferred to the lead ship of my box, and an enlisted armorer was substituted in my crew to handle the reloading of the cannon.

"When the lead ship opened its bomb bay doors, I pressed the button that opened ours. Upon sighting the first bomb to leave the other ship, I pressed another button that released our bombs. This was an extremely accurate type of formation, and we were accomplish a lot of damage with this kind of precision bombing."

When Bonham's B-25G was out of service for awhile for engine overhaul and some damage repair, he flew mostly D models and later was introduced to the H model, which had the same gun-equipped nose as his G model but in other respects was similar to the later J model, whose turret was up front closer to the flight crew. The H and J models also had a larger, more comfortable station for the tail gunner. The J model had a plexiglass nose for the bombardier.

On Corsica the B-25J eventually replaced all the cannon-equipped models, which were transferred to the China theater. "The enlisted man who reloaded the G model's cannon moved up to the bombardier's compartment on the J, and his title now became 'bombardier' because he opened the bomb bay doors and dropped the bombs," Bonham said. "He used my watch-the-other-plane method as in the G model. There was no bomb sight. No longer did we fly at low altitudes close to the ocean.

"I really loved that new J. It arrived as a beautiful silver plane unsullied by camouflage paint. I gave the crew chief, who was responsible for its maintenance, the privilege of naming it. He was a racehorse fan from Kentucky, so our plane soon had a beautiful painting of a horse named 'Wise Decision.' I think it was the most photographed plane on the base. I had about 30 to 35 missions when this plane was given to me and my crew. It was the one I flew until the flight surgeon grounded me after 70 missions. By the time I headed for home practically all our airplanes were B-25Js."

Flying the Mitchells of whatever model involved careful attention to airspeeds. Typical cross-country speeds were at power settings that provided approximately 175 to 180 mph indicated airspeed. For long over-water flights requiring most distance with least fuel consumption, pilots reduced power to maintain 160 to 170 mph.

"If we were in a hurry," Bonham says, "we increased the power settings, resulting in approximately 200 mph indicated airspeed. We always used this setting while engaging in combat, whether at low or high altitude. Of course, in an emergency we would firewall the throttles!"

Occasionally, as "Tailend Charlie," Bonham's plane would reach as much as 310 mph as his formation, immediately after dropping its bombs, made a turning dive with evasive action toward the ocean to get away from the cloud of antiaircraft flak above the target. (The B-25 was redlined at 345 mph.)

"The excellent accuracy of the German 88mm antiaircraft cannon caused great challenges for the bombardier and the pilots," Bonham says. "The bombardier was forced to adjust his bombsight in shortened times for bomb runs. The pilots were kept extremely busy maintaining close position to the plane next to them during wild changes in maneuvers."

Pilots figured that an average of 17 seconds elapsed between the time the 88 gunners could determine the bombers' speed and altitude and aim their guns, and the time the shells reached the formation of B-25s. "This meant that to avoid as much of the flak bursts as possible, every 17 seconds our box leader had to maneuver our six planes into a turn and make a quick altitude change. The worst damage to us was usually from their first shots before we started evasive action. We were the most vulnerable during the 30 to 40 seconds of straight and level flight required by the bombardier."

But since the B-25 was such a maneuverable aircraft, the planes were able to stay close together throughout all the evasive action. Staying in close formation was their best defense against enemy fighters, which had to face the dozen .50 caliber machine guns from the six planes' turrets, plus the bombardiers' nose guns, the tail guns, and the side guns fired by radio operators.

By early February, 1944, when Bonham and his crew arrived on Corsica, German fighter opposition had declined a great deal from its peak during the early years of the war, but Bonham's plane encountered enemy fighters on 15 missions. "They were mostly the Messerschmitt Me. 109 and Focke-Wulf FW 190," Bonham said. "They used to scare the hell out of me because I could see their tracers headed our way."

During the early months of Bonham's stay on Corsica, his outfit's B-25s were escorted by P-39s on low-level missions and Supermarine Spitfires flown by pilots from American, English and Free French squadrons until they had to turn back, limited by their comparatively short range. Near the end of Bonham's tour, the longer-legged Republic P-47 gave fighter protection all the way to the targets and back.

"We flew over very few large cities," Bonham said. "During our low-altitude cannon trips we remained at sea, firing at ships that dared to come out of harbor during the day, and at various ground targets along the shore. One time our target was a locomotive, which, unfortunately for us, was sitting next to an airfield ringed with 88mm and 40mm guns.

"If we encountered no targets, we always flew as far as we dared into one of three of the largest harbors on Italy's west coast--Livorno (Leghorn), Piombino and San Stefano--and 'lobbed' 75mm shells at the large ships anchored therein. Those missions were always the scariest because we could see 40mm tracers coming right at us, always appearing as if they were sure to enter our cockpits."

Most of Bonham's missions were three to four hours long, depending on the target. Once Bonham's squadron crossed Italy to the Adriatic Ocean (Yugoslavia on the other side of the Adriatic was visible from the B-25s' altitude) and flew up the coast almost to the border to knock down a railroad bridge. "Sometimes we were called 'Bridge Busters' because most of our missions then were to destroy the mountain rail bridges the Germans were using to ship supplies to their forces in southern Italy, especially at the beachhead at Anzio."

On one mission Bonham "had a pretty good look at the Leaning Tower of Pisa as we flew by," and once, flew high over Rome, where his mission was to drop surrender leaflets, not bombs. "You've heard about the Seven Hills of Rome," he said.

"That's where the Germans placed their 88mm anti-aircraft guns, forcing us to fly so high that the thinner air made me revert to my usual cranky self. We did not carry oxygen and it seemed to take forever, circling around, waiting for someone to order the leaflets dropped. I was so busy just holding my position with the airplane next to me that I had little opportunity to admire the view below."

In all this activity "only once was one of my crew wounded," Bonham said, "and that was the time a piece of flak entered his neck, just missing his jugular vein."

Flak, however, damaged Bonham's airplane regularly whenever it was encountered, "which was most of the time." As for fire from enemy fighters, just twice did Bonham's crew chief and his assistants have to patch holes from their guns.

"I considered our crew lucky when we finally left Corsica," Bonham said. "Three members of the crew that took over our plane were wounded on later missions, including the pilot, who was sent back to the States for more hospitalization."

Upon his return to the United States, Bonham became an instrument flight instructor, training other returnees in B-25s to teach instrument flying to cadets.

As a civilian Bonham has remained close to the B-25s he flew. Some years ago the Southern Minnesota Wing of the Confederate Air Force rebuilt a B-25, naming it "Miss Mitchell" after one that actually flew in combat, and he helped search out its history. I was enthusiastic about this because 'Miss Mitchell' and my 'Wise Decision' were members of the same 380th Bomb Squadron, and both occasionally had flown in the same missions."

After "Miss Mitchell" was restored, Bonham twice sat in the cockpit while the B-25 was taxied from one part of its field to another, and helped with runup tests. Each year members of all the B-25 squadrons that participated in the Southern Europe campaigns get together, and Bonham has attended some of them. Bonham has kept in touch with many of his original crew members. "My radio operator and I have gotten together a few times over the years and have exchanged letters often," he said. "My original co-pilot, who transferred to India and China with our G-models, gave me a phone call a couple of weeks ago. My second co-pilot, in whom I had so much confidence I gave him some left seat experience and recommended that he be given his own crew, is still living and doing OK.

My turret gunner, a banker in Niagara Falls, New York, died of a heart attack seven years ago. My bombardier, the fellow who transferred to the lead ship, and my crew chief are no longer living. My engineer-tail gunner seems to have disappeared."

As the numbers of Bonham's missions built up, many of his crew members were grounded for reasons similar to battle fatigue. "My crew kept changing so much that I never got to know any of them well enough to be interested in keeping in touch. By the time I reached my 70th mission, five different co-pilots had flown with me."

Out of uniform, Bonham has amassed 900 hours in his logbook. His civilian mounts have included a Cessna 182, a 1946 Globe Swift, a C24 Beechcraft, a 1942 Culver Cadet, and a Baby Great Lakes biplane.

In them he has flown "countless cross-countries to points in Iowa, South Dakota, Wisconsin, etc. The most memorable to me were flights to Vermont, eastern Massachusetts, Kentucky, Fort Worth, Spokane and California via Arizona and Las Vegas."

His first contact with a deaf pilot came when he met Jean Hauser at Oshkosh before she sold her Cessna 172. "She introduced me to Merlin Tice, whom I later visited in Florida, and who there introduced me to Bernard Gross before he moved to California. In recent years David Beaupre and I have become friends, and we flew together in my Culver Cadet before I sold it."

We all in the IDPA are deeply proud that Bonham Cross is one of us.