Bruce Biography

 

When I was a kid growing up in New Jersey my favorite show on TV, like so many others, was "12 O'Clock High". When I came out here to la la land (Los Angeles) in 1966 to go to engineering/A&P school at Northrop Institute I tried to figure out a way to get to see them film the show. I got out to Chino to see all the sets and the B-17's etc. but also wanted to see the stuff at the studio. I knew if I called the studio they would just laugh and tell me to take a hike (I was 18 at the time).

So I decided to use some smarts and contacted the USAF Liaison office in Hollywood to track down the tech advisor for the show an ex 8th AF gunner by the name of Sgt. Jim Doherty. I tracked him down and he was just a great guy and invited me to play hooky one day and he'd take me around. So I did so and he took me to the Fox Western Studios where the show was filmed. He showed the various English sets, military sets, but the best was the B-17 fuselage, complete with turrets, they had set up on one of the sound stages. I got to go all through it, sit in the cockpit, etc. He showed me how they had removed some skin panels and replaced them with thin aluminum skins with explosive squibs to simulate gunfire hits on the fuselage. It was a great day for me and one I will never forget.

The fuselage I had seen and sat in was of course SN 44-83387. I stayed in touch with Jim for years after until he passed away. I never thought I would see 387 again.

But then I got a call in the mid 1970's from a friend of mine at Northrop who said he saw a B-17 fuselage sitting behind a warehouse near LAX. I told him he was crazy and he was playing a joke on me as he knew I loved old planes. He said he was almost sure it was or so old plane and told me how to get over there--it was just about 15 minutes from my job. I went over there at lunch and I was stunned to see this fuselage sitting outside the warehouse. It was indeed a B-17 cut in sections and sitting in dollies. I figured it must have used for some film work. The cockpit was not there outside with the rest of the fuselage. I went into the warehouse door and again was stunned to see the building full of all the old movie props, furniture, mannequins, gatling gun --you name it. I turned a corner to go further and then saw the cockpit of the B-17(complete with upper turret) sitting by itself. I looked it over in and out and realized it had to the same aircraft I had sat in at the Fox Studios--SN 387.I tracked down the owner in one of the offices and he told me he had bought the whole lot at an auction at the Fox Studios.

I told him my story of having sat in the aircraft and what show it had been used in and that the B-17 was my favorite aircraft from WWII. He offered to see it to me for 10,000.00. As much as I hated to turn down the offer I was dead broke. Just having been hired by Northrop and living in a small apartment near by so had to pass. I stayed in touch with him and he told me he shipped it to a new bar he was opening in Greely, Colorado called the Armory--which indeed had been a real Armory building in the early 1900's. He told me later they had to open the brick wall of the building to move the fuselage in and hang it inside over the bar. From that point on there she hung all these years. I would periodically call and ask him if I could buy it but he said no--too much hassle to break open that wall again. I stayed at it for 30 plus years including begging him in 1989 so we could use it for Memphis Belle but it was no-go. Only last year (late 2006) when he decided to sell the business that he finally gave in and sold me the aircraft for less.