Schade had been training for combat and was in Kansas at the time he questioned whether it would be fair to Alene to ask her hand in marriage before going off to war. If she had said no, Schade remembered, he was prepared to marry the military instead.

"I wasn't interested in anyone else," he said.

She said "yes," and on Nov. 23, 1943, they married. They didn't have time for a honeymoon then, and, as Alene noted, they still haven't had a "real" one. There was Cuba, then home for a short time, then in 1945, Guam and Japan.

Schade's war stories and anecdotes he collected in the air and on the ground come out fast and splintered these days. Some thoughts are bits of wartime shrapnel he lets fly inside his home, memories he'd just as soon not make public. He's being pressured to write it all down, but it's been a slow process.

What he doesn't mind sharing with the masses is that he flew 25 bombing missions, leading up to the two B-29 missions that killed more than 100,000 Japanese and brought an end to war there. Paul Tibbets, who at the age of 92 died this month, piloted the Enola Gay, dropping the first atomic bomb in August 1945 over Hiroshima. Schade said he didn't learn — or even believe at first — that the second atomic bomb had been dropped until several days after the highly secretive mission.

The missions got to him. After his 17th bombing run, he sought help.

"'I'm getting frightened — I'm wondering if I can make it all the way through,"' Schade told someone. He was told that feeling that way was normal. "It didn't help much."

But he did make it all the way through the war, with the only serious wound to one of the B-29s he helped pilot inflicted by his own gunner, who accidentally shot a hole in one of the engines — something the gunner didn't admit until long after the war was over while at a reunion. Schade was also a co-pilot in the B-29 named Sentimental Journey, which is now on display at a museum in Tucson.

Schade's 26th and final mission over Japan was not to drop bombs. He was part of the "Show of Force" as planes flew over Tokyo Bay while Japanese leaders signed surrender documents.

Out of 11 men aboard his B-29, all made it home alive. Over the years he's kept in touch with them. One became a police officer, another repaired appliances — one became an alcoholic and after a while wasn't heard from again. Today, there are five men left.

Schade, who earned a Distinguished Flying Cross, came home and worked a few jobs, including nine months for Western Airlines in 1946. He stayed in the Reserves and would eventually retire as a major from the Air Force after 22 years in the military. In 1981, he retired from Frontier Airlines after flying 35 years for them.