A passing pilot and a wrench saved the life of one “PBY guy,” who will share his tale of survival this weekend at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station’s Thunder on the Rock airshow.

George Thelen, an 83-year-old Seattle resident whose son, Michael Thelen, lives in Oak Harbor, will appear at the PBY Memorial Association’s booth at the airshow this weekend as an invited guest. Thelen says he plans to wear his Navy uniform from World War II.

His story of survival after being shot down by a Japanese fighter crew near the Aleutian Islands June 3, 1942, is one for the history books. In fact, Thelen has memorialized the experience by his own written account and pencil sketches, which he drew in the days immediately following the incident.

Thelen was a young ensign, in the Navy less than a year at the time of the incident, who was patrolling the area west of the Aleutian Islands along with two other pilots. The Navy had received intelligence reports of a possible Japanese attack on the Aleutians, and U.S. Navy PBYs and crews were assigned to look out for them.

A native of Bozeman, Mont., Thelen was attending college, studying forestry. He never dreamed he would find himself in a disabled aircraft, floating for hours on end in the ocean.

However, he had been bitten by the flying bug when he saw the movie “Flight Command” starring Robert Taylor.

“I thought, ‘Golly Sakes! Flying a plane off a ship!’ ” said Thelen last week.

He joined the Navy in 1941 and headed for flight school in Corpus Christi, Texas, a member of the very first class to go through that school. Thelen remembers that much of the base was still under construction while he was there.

During his training he entered and won a drawing contest. Thelen designed and drew the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station logo, which is still in use today.

After graduation, Thelen was assigned to Patrol Wing Squadron 4 in Seattle. He deployed to the Aleutian Islands May 30, 1942. Just four days later the Japanese attacked Dutch Harbor.

“We were on patrol looking for the Japanese,” Thelen said. “We had information of a possible attack by Japanese Imperial Forces.”

Thelen was acting as co-pilot, and Lt. j.g. Lucius Campbell piloted the PBY, when it was attacked by a Japanese fighter jet from below and behind.

“The Japanese started shooting,” Thelen said. One crewman was injured, the plane’s fuel tanks were riddled with bullets and the rudder controls were shot up.

Campbell continued to climb the PBY, broke through the overcast and “into the blue,” Thelen said.

“And both our engines quit. We were out of fuel,” Thelen said. The bullet holes in the fuel tanks had caused the loss of fuel.

“Dead stick at 9,000 feet,” Thelen said. “So now we are a glider coming down over the overcast, hoping we’d break out of the overcast before hitting the water.”

The pilot was able to pull up in time to skid the plane along the water. It came to a stop and began to float.

However, a multitude of water spouts sprung up as the sea water entered the aircraft through bullet holes. The crew realized that the small bullet holes could be plugged with pencils, and they broke pencils into pieces to plug all the holes.

Thelen bandaged the injured man’s wound, and the crew radioed messages until the plane’s battery died.

Their future well-being was in question until a lost PBY flew overhead. Thelen and his crew used their signal light to inform the crew of the PBY overhead of their position. That crew signalled back that they’d get help.

Thelen learned later that the crew of the other PBY was heading back to the base when it saw the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Nemaha. The PBY crew wrote a message including the downed plane’s position, put it in a sack along with a wrench to weigh it down, and dropped the sack onto the deck of the cutter.

Three hours later, when dusk was turning to dark, Nemaha arrived at the scene of the downed PBY and rescued Thelen and the rest of the crew.

“Boy, that was a wonderful sight,” Thelen said.

The damaged PBY was a new plane, this having been only its fourth flight. Since it was still afloat, the Coast Guard tried to tow it back to base. The choppy seas made that effort impossible, and the plane took on more water until it sank.

Thelen left the Navy in 1946 and went to work for Boeing. For the next 32 years Thelen worked in engineering, flight testing and flight crew training. He was married and is the father of six children.

Before retiring from Boeing in 1978, Thelen said that through his work he was able to travel the world, taking a total of 26 “mini-vacations.” He enjoyed visiting other countries.

“I felt at home in every one of them,” he said.

But, his ordeal of June 3, 1942 is one memory that Thelen recalls with vivid detail. Clearly the events of that day made him feel lucky to be alive and encouraged him to live life to the fullest thereafter.

Summing up his 83 years and the opportunities that both his military and civilian careers offered him, Thelen had one simple statement.

Said Thelen: “It’s a wonderful life.”