WWII veteran honored with missing-man flyover at Fort Snelling

The radial engines firing up at Flying Cloud Airport had a special mission.  The pilots climbing into the cockpits of their vintage WWII trainers, T-6’s and SN-J’s and a later model T-34 were all assembling to honor a fellow veteran older than their planes. 

"He lived a wonderful life," said Karen Drake of her father Bernie Holritz who recently died at the age of 101.  Drake emphasized that he was actually 101-and-a-half.

"Strong and as good of mind all the way to the end," she said.

Holritz grew up in North Dakota and headed toward California in 1941 to find work.  He ended up at Lockheed helping to build and perfect a relatively new concept fighter aircraft that Lockheed and the Army Air Force called the P-38 Lightning.  But after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Navy came calling.