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Fred Shorten was last in an airplane 33 years ago, and he has no intention of flying again.

During a flight from Chicago, nervous and shaking, he anxiously waited for the landing.

"There was a young girl next to me who asked if it was the first time I had been in an airplane," he said.

In fact, it was not the first time for the Air Force and World War II veteran, who has not been fond of flying since being shot down in 1945.

In Shorten's room at the Lorien Mount Airy, visitors can view a small metal plane perched on his dresser.

"Careful, don't drop it, it's heavy," he said, holding out the model plane he had bought and touched up with paint.

The B-17, or Flying Fortress, is a replica of the plane he rode in.

In the B-17, there were about 10 people on board, either manning the flight as a pilot, navigator or flight engineer, or shooting out of the aircraft as a waist gunner or an aircraft armorer, he said.

As the aircraft armorer of the plane, Shorten was responsible for the ammunition on board. He would often have to straddle bombs with a crowbar, prying free 1,000 pounds of TNT.

"I worked clearing up troubles when we were in the air," he said.

Bombs would shift, being in danger of not falling at the correct time, he said. Sometimes the front end would loosen, but the back would stay attached.

"There we were with the bomb bay doors opened, which slowed the plane down," he said. "I had to do it quite a bit — pry them loose. I'd be up there with a crow bar, nothing between me and the ground, but the nice, thin air."

The crew, part of the 15th Air Force, was based in Southern Italy. They flew multiple missions into German airspace, often venturing 700 or 800 miles to bomb targets, such as rail yards, industrial plants and chemical factories.

Shorten has a small stash of photos from his time in the Air Force, the majority of them of planes in the air. He said he usually took a camera with him in the plane.

"I always took one along in case there was something unusual," he said. "If they did something spectacular, I'd try to snap a picture of it."

Other black and white photos show camp life, and another shows men in front of the plane. Shorten pointed to a man crouching with a pipe in his mouth. "He was killed the day after Christmas in 1944," he said. "Nicholas Lykos, he was Greek."

During a flight, Shorten discovered him in the nose of the plane, a clear gunning area, with head wounds from enemy fire.

Shorten was in his first year of college at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, studying aeronautical engineering, when he was drafted in 1942 and sent to Italy.

In February 1945, Shorten was in a plane that never returned to its base. Instead, over Germany, the plane was targeted.

"It was something fierce," he said. "It was the one time I really began to get concerned about whether we would make it."

Shorten heard dialogue between the pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer in the plane, as engines started shutting down.

"I heard ‘uh-oh,'" he said. "Airplanes like that don't fly very well under one engine."

Unable to gain altitude to fly over the Alps to Italy, the flight crew turned the plane toward Switzerland in hopes of the country allowing them in.

"They didn't want us," he said. "They were shooting at us, but shooting wide of us. The Swiss shot down a lot of American planes."

The plane landed in a farmer's field and the crew scattered. "We ran like the dickens because we were afraid it would blow up," he said.

Armed soldiers showed up and they were taken in and sent to an internment camp in a mountain town, which used gutted hotels for the soldiers.

Back at their base in Italy, fellow soldiers raided the tents of the crew. Some took Shorten's shoes and a watch that was a graduation present from his parents.

"They didn't know what had happened to us, they just knew we weren't coming back," he said. "I tell you, your attitude about life and death changes quickly in those circumstances."

The crew never returned to their squadron in Italy, but instead were released after the war. Shorten and his comrades were shipped to Camp Lucky Strike in France, then across the ocean to New Jersey. A native of Scranton, Pa., Shorten returned to his parents and younger brother and sister.

"When I set foot back on U.S. soil again, I stood for a moment and I made a solemn vow to never leave again," he said. "It was easy to get over, but it was hell getting back."

He never returned to his original college, saying his nerves were too shattered.

"I was bad at the whole world," he said. "Flying these combat missions was very, very stressful, [and] warps you out of shape."

Instead he finished his education at the University of Scranton, changing his course of study. "I switched to physics because I was through flying," he said.

Deciding to explore Scranton to see what had changed since he had last been home, Shorten ran into a girl he had dated before he went into the service.

"The girl that was with her was a blonde girl," he said. "Boy, she had hair the color of butter, the sort of blonde you only see in the hair dye ads, but it was natural."

After 20 minutes of chatting, Shorten had decided one thing. "I thought ‘This would be a good one to marry,'" he said. "And I did."

Two years later he married the blonde girl, Joy Storm. Their daughter Cindy came along after that. "She's very smart," Shorten said. "Takes after her mother."

Cindy Shorten said her dad didn't talk about his war experiences with her growing up.

"I guess he saw a lot of stuff over there they he just didn't want to talk about," she said.

Shorten, a Gaithersburg resident, said her dad has always enjoyed working on cars and refinishing antique furniture, a passion of her mom's.

Fred and Joy were married for 56 years before her death five years ago.

After graduating from Scranton, Shorten did graduate work, while being involved in a number of jobs: working with Johns Hopkins University, as a scientist at a Glass Company and the National Bureau of Standards (now National Institute of Standards and Technology).

Shorten is proud of his service, both for and in the country.

"I worked 42 years and never missed a paycheck," he said. "Quit on a Friday and started a new job on Monday."