Putting years of combat and war behind them can be difficult for some veterans, but John Ferenz Sr., who turned 100 on Jan. 11, is different, in part because of his undying passion for music.
It all began when he was 10 years old in New York City in the 1930s. A son of Czechoslovakian immigrants, Ferenz and his family lived in a Slovak neighborhood on the upper east side in Manhattan, where all the kids on his block went to the same Catholic school.
“One day my mother said the nuns were giving me piano lessons and that I was going,” he told the Sun in the living room of his Santa Maria home. “So what did I say? ‘Yes, mom.’”
He’s been playing ever since.
It’s impossible to not notice the records, tapes, and CDs stacked high on shelves throughout Ferenz’s house. His walls are plastered with music-themed posters, including one that features the entire history of jazz. Just behind his favorite chair rests one of his prized possessions, a grand piano.
“I’ve always loved the big bands,” Ferenz said. “Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller … as a matter of fact, I played with Joe Jackson’s Big Band. I’m one of the original members.”
When he got out to Santa Maria in 1988, to be closer to his son (also named John) who was stationed at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Ferenz’s passion for music was as strong as ever, and he quickly established himself in the local community.
“We moved to Portland to retire and asked him to come with us, but he was so settled and committed to his music here he didn’t want to leave,” his son John said.
And even at 100, Ferenz Sr. is still going strong. Once a month, he and his band perform at Country Oaks Care Center, among other venues.
He said he was grateful to have the opportunity to still play, not just at his current age, but after his time at war in general.
“I was lucky: I came back with two hands, two legs, two eyes … a lot of people didn’t,” he said.
The Liberator
In 1943, after missing several draft call-ups due to his marriage, Ferenz enlisted with the U.S. Air Force.
“At that point, the war had really started to get going, especially at home, and the government needed a lot of bombers right away,” he explained. “But the first thing I noticed was the airplanes and knew I wanted to do that.”
Four years earlier, Ferenz received a Bachelor of Science in biology from Manhattan College. It was something he hadn’t found much use for until then.
“There was a notice that anyone with a college degree could go right into officer training and become a pilot. That’s how I got to fly,” he said.
He was assigned to a B-24 heavy bomber, otherwise known as The Liberator.
A year later, Ferenz was stationed in the small town of Shipdham, England, roughly 40 miles northeast of Norwich. It was there he would embark on at least 35 missions across France, Belgium, Austria, and Germany.
The bombers could top out at around 24,000 feet and included crews of 10 men.
“My specialty was keeping that monster in formation,” he said. “I had a reputation as a pretty good formation flyer.”
That was incredibly important, as planes that broke rank midair almost always got taken out by German Luftwaffe Messerschmitt fighter planes that circled the bomb squadrons.
But dangers for the bombers didn’t end there. Unlike their long range, more famous counterparts, the B-17 Flying Fortress, B-24s were capped by the height in altitude they could climb and how far they could fly due to their fuel tanks. The result was pilots always having to think about potential emergency landing spots ahead of time since a lot of Axis anti-aircraft guns could still reach the B-24s on their bombing runs.
“We were so high up you could never hear the shells explode from their anti aircraft,” Ferenz said, “but you could feel it. You ever had someone do the Heimlich Maneuver on you? It felt like that. And when you felt it, it meant there was an explosion, and it was close.”
Sometimes too close for comfort.
“I remember one of the [planes] in the squadron in front of us had a shell explode in its right wing and that was it,” he explained. “The wing went up like a matchstick—it was filled with high-octane gas—when that exploded … 10 guys … nobody got out of that one.
“And it happened quite often. We had a lot of nerve trying to fly those planes,” he added.
When asked if witnessing such sights during war made him hesitant to keep flying into war zones, Ferenz went silent. His jaw hardened and his eyes narrowed as he appeared to gaze at a blank wall across from his chair.
“This was a job you had to do,” he said.
Honor Flights
While Ferenz all but gave up flying after the war, choosing a career with a scientific supply company over commercial airlines, one flight in 2014 really resonated with the now century-old veteran.
That was when the Honor Flight Network of Central Coast California flew Ferenz for free to Washington, D.C., to visit the WWII, Vietnam, and Korean war memorials. The network is a nationally based program that purchases plane tickets and trips for veterans to visit such war monuments. His son John accompanied him along the way and said the experience meant more than he could put into words.
“It was very moving,” he added.
When asked why he was never drawn to fly again, Ferenz’s son answered for his father.
“You have to realize he had 35 opportunities to get shot down in Europe, and once he survived that, I think he said to himself, ‘I’m just gonna get home in one piece,’ because so many people he knew didn’t,” Ferenz Jr. said. “I mean, can you imagine flying an airplane like he did? As difficult as they were to fly—they were known as a ‘flying coffin’ among other airmen.
“It took a lot of muscle just to keep the plane straight,” he added.
Ferenz Sr. is proud of his physique, even today. He told the Sun he tries to lift weights every single day, usually before practicing piano or starting his morning.
“It really helps the [blood] circulation,” he explained.
His son said that though his dad may be 100, between exercise and music, he’s still going strong.
“When I ask him how he’s doing, he invariably says, ‘I’m doing the best I can,’” John explained, before his father cut him off and uttered four words that seem to perfectly encapsulate his spirit and drive.
“I ain’t going nowhere,” he said.
Staff Writer Spencer Cole can be reached at scole@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 18-25, 2018.