Duncan Miller A keeper of aviation history

Photo by: “Wild” Bill Hil

After church every Sunday, Duncan Miller rolls up the heavy door on his hangar at the Nut Tree Airport in Vacaville. Across the thin strip of asphalt roadway, two World War II Lockheed Navy PV2 bomber planes are parked on the grass, the nose art fading with age. Inside the hangar, two bright yellow and blue PT 17 Stearman planes sit behind a row of folding chairs. Miller’s friends and guests drift in.

“Every Sunday I invite random people,” he says. “Except for September. I don‘t open in September.”

In warm weather, 20 people may show up. But on this cold day in January, about 10 come by, huddled in jackets, only taking their hands from pockets to greet each other. Still, they
smile and talk about airplanes and flying as if was some kind of religion Miller’s office is an enclosed space in the hangar. The furniture is two well used sofas and a cluttered table. The walls are completely covered with photos of airplanes and pilots and on one side hangs several brown Army officer’s uniform jackets that Miller wore years ago. The story of an era is captured there and in four smaller hangars owned by Miller. Each hanger is stuffed with WWII aircraft, vintage cars, a military jeep and other memorabilia.

“Clubs and groups come by, but only with an invitation,” Miller said. “I like to show and teach the history of aviation.”
That’s because teaching men to fly is what brought the 88 year old pilot to be a self appointed historian of vintage aircraft.
Born in Omaha in 1921, Miller was the child of Scottish immigrants. His father sold World War I Army surplus supplies to the Indians throughout Nebraska. Even when he was a boy, Miller was captured by the idea of airplanes and flying. “I built model airplanes and went out to the Omaha airport whenever I could,” he remembers.

He graduated from high school in 1939 and scrapped up money to take flying lessons at the airport. The price was $2 for 15 minutes in a yellow Piper J3 Cub, just like the one he owns and flies now, some 71 years later. “The war clouds were gathering then,” he said. “So they opened a government civilian pilot training program with a non-college requirement portion.
“Miller was one of seven applicants chosen and attended ground school for four months before getting his private pilots license. Wanting to stay around airplanes, he went to sheet metal school for aircraft.
As America grew closer to war, Miller went to San Diego to work as a sheet metal man for Consolidated Aircraft, building the B24, B32 and the PBY seaplane.

“I wanted my commercial license so I joined the Royal Air Force,” Miller said. “But I was not yet 21 and my dad refused to sign the papers.”

However, the United States government appointed him to civilian pilot training to finish the requirements for a commercial license. He was assigned to Kelly Field in San Antonio as a military field instructor and then moved on to Vernon Field in Texas.
“I was flying and teaching kids to fly,” he said. “I took the exam for OCS and came out as flight officer.”
His job was to ferry fighter planes; moving as many as they could and call in every evening they report. It was, he says, “a dream job.”

As the war moved on, so did Miller. He was assigned to Palm Springs to C47 school and to fly supplies to troops on the China-Burma, India road. “I was on the loading dock at Long Island, New York with a load of guns when the captain came out and said, ‘The war is over. Go home or get onboard.’

Miller chose to go back to his base in Nashville to wait for discharge. Charged with policing the officer’s club one evening, he asked a group of men to leave because they were not in full uniform. One of them was the base commander who decided to move Miller from Nashville. Miller was assigned as co-pilot on a B17 to search and rescue in the Pacific, to recover downed men.
“We dropped boats and supplies,” said Miller. “I saw Tokyo in ruins. Then, I was connected with the atomic energy program, Eniwetok. That’s how I got to Mather Field in Sacramento.”

Still waiting discharge, he was sent to Travis to fly a B17. He ferried troops home in a C54 until his discharge came through in 1948.
“I was an officer flying the best airplanes in the world,” he said. “I’ve been in heaven ever since.”

Partnering with other pilots, they started an airline, Transport Associates, flying people and cargo in C46, C47 and DC3 planes from Seattle to Alaska and across the US.
“I also did moonlighting as a flight instructor in Vallejo,” he said. “I had a wife and six kids.”

After seven years, the air transport business gave in to heavy competition from larger companies. Miller and one partner changed direction and contracted to work for the military, providing janitorial and garbage service at the bases. The new enterprise lasted 25 years. During that time, Miller continued to fly and bought antique planes and rebuilt them. “I got out of control,” he says with a boyish smile.
While the world of aviation has been the most compelling part of his life, Miller likes to talk about what he calls his “do-gooder program.”

“I feed people,” he said. For 30 years now, Miller has worked with his church and the Solano County and Contra Costa food banks to make sure families in need have milk. Twice a week, he takes a crew of men to the milk processing plant to pickup milk in cartons left aside by the machines. In the especially designed refrigerated bed of Miller’s pickup, he delivers milk to the food banks for distribution. He is there to hand out the food boxes to the line of people who show up.

Because of the pacemaker Miller wears near his heart, he can no long fly solo, except for the Piper Cub he occasionally takes up. But he takes pride in his granddaughter, Capt. Katie Weeks, an air force pilot of a KC10. On the wall is a photo of Miller as he pins on her wings.
On this cold January day, Miller wears a pale blue sweater that matches his eyes and his short white hair ruffles in the breeze. He is something of an icon in the aviation world and is a member of the board of directors of the Travis Air Museum at Travis Air Force Base. The history of flying is safe as long as people like Miller preserve it.

About the author Nan Mahon

Nan Mahon lives in Elk Grove and is both the Cover Story and Senior Spotlight writer for Senior Magazine. She is also the author of Junkyard Blues, a thrilling motorcycle ride through Texas, California and Mexico behind a Vietnam vet running from the drug Cartel.
More posts by Nan Mahon