SHREVEPORT, La. -- The B-17 Bomber AKA, "The Flying Fortress" was pivotal in the raid on Hamburg, Germany during World War II.

In Shreveport, a restored and in near mint condition B-17 Bomber is on display for the public for a small fee.

The Bomber boasts of up to 13 .50 caliber machine guns, a 20,000lbs bomb, and a host of other weapons and machinery used during when the plane was in mass production.

One man from Ruston, La. knows all too well the power the B-17 bomber had when used in Hamburg.

After a short stay in an internment camp, Wesselhoft, German by descent, American by birth and at heart - and his family were shipped to Hamburg Germany during the war.

It was there where he experienced first hand what the B-17 can do.

"What I remember seeing them was just horizon to horizon... B-17's. Hamburg was totally wiped out," recalls Adolf Wesselhoft.

He was only eight-years old at the time.

Wesselhoft and his family survived the raid by leaving Hamburg when the sirens sounded off.

After the war, Wesselhoft returned to the States and later joined the Armed Forces. He flew B-52's over Vietnam.

He has been left partially blind but still opted to come from Ruston to see the bird that decimated Hamburg when he was a child.

"...It took a lot more for those crew members that what we experienced today or what I flew in," says Wesselhoft.

The Bomber is on display at the Downtown Airport in Shreveport as part of its 70 city tour.