He remembers the moment he decided he was going to enlist in the service and join the World War II effort.

It was Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, the day that would become known to millions as Pearl Harbor day.

William Penn and a friend were out driving around when the news of the ambush on Pearl Harbor came over the car radio.

He was in Houston, where he worked on the air base there.

“We pulled over, we just couldn’t believe it,” he said.

The 89-year-old Army Air Corps veteran said he made up his mind then he was going to the Army Recruiting Office the next day.

That’s exactly what Penn did, and two weeks later, he was on a bus, heading to San Antonio to start earning his wings.

He had his wings nine months later, married his girlfriend, Catherine, and graduated at Moore Field in Mission, Texas, in 1942.

He spent another year as a flight instructor and was flying B-26 bombers.

“That was such a dangerous plane,” Penn said. “The wings were too short and there were problems with the pitch device, it would run away on takeoff.”

The Cropwell resident credits then Sen. Harry Truman with calling attention to the problems with the B-26, and eventually, the planes were redesigned with safer engineering.

His training continued, and in mid-1943, Penn became part of a B-24 group forming in California and preparing to head overseas.

The group took off for England in early 1944, and flew its first mission that January.

Penn’s plane had a crew of 10. Between January 1944 and May 1945, the crew flew 29 missions together.

“One of the things I suppose I feel proudest of is that there was only one injury among my crew members during our missions,” Penn said. “My waist gunner got frostbite around his cheeks, the air we were flying in was 35 degrees below zero.”

When the war ended, Penn finished his aeronautical engineering degree at Alabama Polytechnic Institute, now Auburn University, while working in a co-op program and went to work for NASA at Langley Field in Virginia.

After being there a year, Penn received a telegram from Alabama Sen. John Sparkman congratulating him on receiving an appointment to the Regular Army Air Corps.

He re-entered the service as a captain in the Air Force, which sent him to Purdue University to get his master’s degree.

Penn remained in the Air Force for 23 more years, working in research and development.

The memories of the war and his years in the service stay close in his thoughts, but Penn got a new memory of the service Oct. 28 when he joined 101 other World War II veterans from Alabama for a very special trip.

Through Honor Flight Birmingham, the veterans were flown to Washington, D.C., to visit the World War II Memorial.

The group was met by Air Force and Navy personnel, active troops and citizens who lined the sidewalks standing at attention to honor the heroes as they boarded chartered buses to take them from the airport to the memorial.

“It is a wonderful memorial,” Penn said.

There are many impressive facets to the memorial. Perhaps the most impressive for Penn was the part that held 4,000 stars, representing the more than 400,000 people who died in the war.

Penn smiles recalling the day in Washington, its meaning for him is apparent.

He jokes about the trip being a little tough, though. He had to be at the Birmingham Airport at 5:30 a.m., which meant getting up at 3:30 a.m.

The trip was a one-day event, and Penn was home the same night at about 7:30.

“I think it took about three days to get over it, but it was worth it,” he said.

Each veteran on the trip traveled with a guardian, and Penn’s was Don Wilson, an author, retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, and retired history professor for Samford University who has also taught history at the Air Force Academy.

“Talking with him was most enjoyable for me,” Penn said. “It added even more to the trip.”

Penn was one of four from St. Clair County making the trip with Honor Flight Birmingham.

He said he heard about the program about a year ago and applied on line to take the trip. He got a phone call telling him he was “on board” about three weeks before the trip took place.

Honor Flight Birmingham is supported entirely by donations made by individuals, groups and in-kind contributions. There is no paid staff.

Honor Flight Birmingham was founded in 2007 by Pam Nichols, a marketing officer for Noland Health Services, and Amy McDonald, a Shades Valley High School history teacher.

There were five other local veterans on board the flight, Levi Sirman Jr. of Moody, Walter D. Hale, George N. Boutwell, Harold B. Walton and Ralph Tribble Jr.

Upon their return to Birmingham, the veterans were greeted by family, friends and a huge group of schoolchildren waving flags and local honor guards.

On the trip home, Penn said he talked with Wilson about what they felt was the most significant aspect of the memorial.

“He said it would probably be the Wall of Stars,” Penn said. “For me, I think it was the location. When you’re there, you look out at the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Memorial, and it’s very impressive.”

Penn said he’s thought about the missions he flew through the years, about the ways it may have affected his life.

“I don’t know that I came back a different person, but I was awfully young,” he said. “I was looking at my effectiveness reports one time and my squad commander’s notes. He wrote that I was ‘mature beyond my years.’ I guess it made you that way, it did everybody. You had a maturity from that, from where you had been.”