Mr. Nelson, then about 25 years-old and a top turret and waist gunner in the U.S. Army Air Force's 333rd, 94th Bomb Group, was in the waist gunner position of the plane.

The Focke-Wolfe's ammunition ripped into the wing and engine, sending the plane out of control.

As the pilot and co-pilot struggled to right the plane, Mr. Nelson checked on his crewmates. Three of the ten men had been killed.

With the plane in serious trouble, Mr. Nelson and the other survivors bailed out.

Sixty-five years later, Mr. Nelson still recalls losing consciousness, then regaining it as he plummeted down to earth. He also remembered that it was snowing that day, February 10, 1944.

The seven men were captured by Germans and taken to a camp in East Prussia. Later, they were transferred to Stalag Luft IV, located about 2.5 miles south of Keifheide in Pomerania.

The camp was large one, the prisoners numbering in the thousands. Mr. Nelson was separated from his crewmates.

On February 5, 1945, with the Russian army rapidly advancing, the German camp officials decided to evacuate the camp.

The men were forced into a nightmarish trek, which lasted until April. So grim was the experience, it has been referred to variously as "The Death March" and "The Black March."

With limited provisions and enduring cold, dampness and illnesses, the POWs marched daily, sleeping in barns and in the woods and surviving on whatever food they could get their hands on.

Mr. Nelson said he quit smoking so that he could trade his cigarettes for eggs and bread.

Finally at end of April, 1945, a few days before the war ended, the prisoners were liberated.

Mr. Nelson, now 91 and a resident of Lockwood Lodge, Masonicare in Newtown, was one of a number of people who flew from Bridgeport to the Waterbury-Oxford Airport on a B-17 owned by the Collings Corporation of Stow, Mass., last Thursday afternoon.

On disembarking, he tried to tell his story to a small appreciative audience, but was soon overcome by emotion.

The Collings Foundation annually brings its restored B-17 Flying Fortress and Consolidated B-24 Liberator to Oxford for touring and flights.

In recent years, including this year, it brought in the North American P-51 Mustang as well.

The planes are a mobile museum of living history - some of the finest examples of their kind in the world today.

When the B-17 arrived about 2:30 p.m. Thursday, more than 100 people, including war veterans, were there to greet it.

Not all of them were airmen.

Michael Martone of Waterbury loaded ships with ammunition during his stint with he U.S. Army.

He said he never flew in a plane during he war, but it thrills him today to hear them when they soar over his Sylvan Avenue house.

Mr. Martone, 85, said he has come to the airport every year for four years.

"I like to hear them. I like to see them too," he said.

Tony Santoro, 91, also of Waterbury, said his job in the U.S. Army Air Force was as a mechanic - part of an 18-man ground crew.

Stationed in Chen Kung, China, he said he patched up the planes that returned battered from missions.

His two brothers, Vito and Joe, were in the armed services at the same time as he - one as a motor pool mechanic, the other a "go getter" for officers.

They all came through the war unscathed but his brothers are no longer living. Nor are many of his ground crew mates.

"My buddies are all gone," he said.

Mr. Santoro said he has been coming to Oxford to see the Collings planes for the past 15 years.

But he said he was no longer interested in taking a flight in one. With one hip replaced once and the other hip twice, he said embarking a plane was "getting to be a job right now."

Twenty-year-old James Bracket of Prospect, who came to the airport with his World War II veteran grandfather, 85-year-old James Fontana of Meriden, said people like his grandfather and Mr. Nelson are heroes.

"I can't imagine what it was like," he said of their experiences during the war.

It's that kind of respect that Stacey Victoria of Ansonia said she wanted to instill in her 3-1/2-year-old son, Brian.

"We tell him they're the real heroes," she said of World War II vets.

Brian and his parents were among those waiting to be admitted to the tarmac Thursday so they could get a close up look at the vintage aircraft.

Brian really loves airplanes, Stacey said.