B-17s Back in ‘Wild Blue Yonder’

--Four World War II-vintage aircraft flew in formation over Seattle in a final tune-up for a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the B-17 “Flying Fortress,” the bomber credited as being one of the weapons most responsible for defeating the Axis powers in Europe. About 10,000 veterans, including five Medal of Honor recipients, and their families are expected today through Sunday for festivities marking the production of the first B-17, which rolled out of a Boeing Co. hangar in July, 1935. The Medal of Honor recipients--William R. Lawley Jr. of Montgomery, Ala.; Forest L. Vosler of Baldwinsville, Calif.; Edward S. Michael of Fairfield, Calif.; John C. Morgan of Marina del Rey, Calif., and Jay Zeamer Jr., Boothbay Harbor, Me.--will fly on a B-17, and retired Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay will address the veterans. The bomber, which carried a 10-man crew and 2,000 pounds of bombs, was dubbed the “Flying Fortress.” The heavily armed planes flew thousands of missions in the European and Pacific theaters. Fewer than a half-dozen of the 12,000 B-17s that flew during the war remain intact today. Most were cut up for scrap.

--Dolores Ibarruri, 89, honorary president of the Commmunist Party of Spain and known as “La Pasionaria” since the 1936-39 civil war, was in good condition after suffering a broken collar bone in a fall at her vacation home in Gijon, the Spanish national news agency EFE reported. Ibarruri, a deputy in the Spanish parliament during the 1931-36 Second Republic, gained fame during the civil war for her passionate call for resistance to the forces of Gen. Francisco Franco before going into exile in the Soviet Union. She returned to Spain in 1976, when King Juan Carlos decreed a general amnesty after Franco’s death.

--British author and poet Robert Graves celebrated his 90th birthday surrounded by relatives and friends at his home in Deya, a small hill town on the Spanish island of Majorca, his daughter, Lucia, said. “Despite his age, he is in good health,” his daughter said. Graves, author of more than 150 poems and books including, “I, Claudius” and “Goodbye to All That,” has been living in Deya since 1934, with his third wife, Beryl.

--Aaron Copland, called America’s greatest living composer, went to the Tanglewood Music Center in the Berkshire Mountain town of Lenox, Mass., to visit one of his old students, composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein. Copland, 84, lunched with Bernstein, 67, and students at the center and later attended an evening concert of Copland works conducted by Bernstein. Copland was dean of faculty at the music center when it opened in 1940 and Bernstein was one of the original students.