99-year-old WWII veteran surprised with flight in Miss Montana

Local 99-year-old World War II veteran, Betty Meyer, was honored Saturday for her service with the Women’s Army Corp. Enlisting in 1944, when she came of age, and with permission from her parents, Meyer spent the remaining year of the war as a truck driver.

With the help of family and longtime friend John Haines, the Museum of Mountain Flyers and many others, Meyer was given the opportunity of a lifetime.

Haines heard that Meyer was a World War II veteran and contacted her granddaughter Kelly about setting up the flight. Meyer and her granddaughter, Christina Kraus, were asked to tour the skies of Western Montana aboard the famous airplane, Miss Montana.

Miss Montana is a World War II C-47 transport aircraft, with the type being used extensively by the allies. Over 10,000 were built and used by over 100 countries throughout the world and remained in service until 2008.

Before the aircraft was known as Miss Montana, it was purchased by Montana’s aviation pioneer Bob Johnson in 1946 and spent the next 30 years in service throughout Montana. Tragedy first struck the plane when it dropped 15 smokejumpers on the Mann Gulch Fire in 1946. Twelve of the smokejumpers died in one of the deadliest tragedies in the smokejumper’s history.

In its second brush with death, Miss Montana crashed into the Monongahela River in 1954, with nine servicemen. Pilot Harold Poe was killed in the crash.

Johnson Flying Service pulled the plane out of the river, repaired it, and flew it another 20 years.

The C-47 received the name Miss Montana in 2018 in preparation for the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. Montana volunteers restored the plane just in time to participate in the ceremony to represent Montana.

Meyer arrived at the Museum of Mountain Flying with children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren in tow. She met up with her fellow tour participant and skydiver, Al Charters.

Charters has over 13,000 jumps under his belt and plans to jump out of Miss Montana over Trout Creek near Bill Meadows Ranch. He is a past Army Special Forces veteran and now is an instructor for new smokejumpers and military paratroopers through his company, Duration Ridge Advisors Group.

Meyer met up with pilots Art Dykstra and Randy Schonemann. Dykstra was one of six pilots that flew Miss Montana across the Atlantic to take part in the D-Day celebration. Dykstra said about his trip during the Normandy D-Day flight, “It was a surreal experience because it was a step back in time. All of our jumpers had World War II uniforms and parachutes on. We landed in Duxford, England, which was the place where they took off from. There were 30 of these sitting there, P-51s, and Spitfires. It was like going back in time to 1944. It was absolutely unbelievable.”

Meyer fondly remembers her first flight in an airplane at the age of 12 and said, “I never dreamed I would fly in that airplane.”

Miss Montana was fueled up with 200 gallons of aviation fuel, Meyer and her granddaughter were loaded up and strapped in for the opportunity of a lifetime. Family photos were taken, and goodbyes were said. The plane's route was going to take them over Thompson Falls and a one-person skydiver, if circumstance permitted, would jump out over Trout Creek. The flight would continue up towards Libby and return to Missoula.