Wilmington Airport (ILG) hosted a special guest this week in the form of a World War II era B-29 bomber named DOC.

Josh Wells, Executive Director of B-29 DOC , said the aircraft was built in 1944 and delivered in 1945, but didn't see any combat, serving instead in a radar calibration unit in Upstate New York where it got it's famous name.

"The squadron name was nicknamed "The Snow White Squadron," and there were nine airplanes that were part of the squadron - Snow White, the Seven Dwarves and The Wicked Witch - and DOC was Doc," explained Wells.

DOC then spent four unceremonious decades in the Mojave Desert nearly becoming a bombing target before being rescued by Tony Mazzolini.

Wells said what followed was more than fifteen years of restoration by volunteers.

"They took it apart, they put it on seven flatbed trailers, and they shipped it to Wichita, Kansas, in 2000," said Wells. "When it arrived back in Wichita it arrived just a few hundred feet from where it was delivered to the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1945."

More than 1,600 of the B-29 bomber fleet was built in Wichita.

DOC is one of only two airworthy B-29s in existence and now it's a touchstone for World War II veterans and the men and women who built the aircraft.

"These veterans, these Rosie the Riveters, they're transformed right back to when they were 17, 18, 19, 20 years old, and they're smiling and they're remembering their service and their comrades, and some of them cry because they remember the things that they went through," he said.

And now DOC helps preserve their legacy and the legacy of World War II warbirds.

"We want those stories told, it's part of our nation's history, part of world history, good and bad, but those are things that we must continue to teach the next generation," said Wells. "We can't let those stories and that history die as that Greatest Generation passes on."

From Wilmington, DOC was bound for Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst for a weekend air show.

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