GREEN COVE SPRINGS – Nearly an hour had passed since the two of them took off from Vero Beach, armed with only their uniforms, their uncontrollable grins and the knowledge that what they were doing was illegal.

All details disappeared as they carved their way down the East coast of Florida. To their left, the shadows of the comma shaped Bermuda islands, to their right, Florida. A home waiting for them, hot bricks to warm the sheets, a square meal in the barracks – but right then, that didn’t matter to Norma Elliott. She was young and rebelling with her husband in the goose seat of a SB2C Dive Bomber.

Impersonating an officer, now that was the real crime. Norma donned a friend’s uniform and ID card and went through gear check, fooling all of the commanding officers that she was a Navy Wave.

Joseph Elliott, or Jose as his squadron called him, had built a bit of a reputation as a daredevil back then and that night he showed her why.

The bomber’s nose tipped down until the two of them were gliding inches above the water. Illuminated by the plane’s two 80 million-candlelight power blister lights – she saw the ocean pass below her at 158 miles per hour.

“Real low,” said Norma Elliott, speaking on her husband’s behalf. “He went down real low with that plane, scared me to death. I wouldn’t talk to him. He tried to talk to me on the radio, but I wouldn’t. I was scared.”

Norma and Joseph Elliot – now residents of Green Cove Springs – aren’t the same as they were then. Joseph was 23 when he snuck his wife out of Vero Beach. Now, at age 95, Joseph Elliot has trouble getting around without a walker. His speech is quiet and reserved, undoubtedly one of the lasting side effects of a stroke.

His memories are still with him, however. He can still point out where his squad’s barracks once stood, and did so last Saturday at the Armed Forces Day Celebration. That day, the Military Museum of Northeast Florida re-dedicated the airfield with a new granite plaque in the name of Ensign Benjamin Lee, a World War I pilot and recipient of the Navy Cross who was one of the first victims of World War I.

It was a shared headache that day for everyone, because the old plaque, made of copper, was stolen and probably melted down for cash, said Chris Rodatz, president of the museum’s board.

To honor Lee’s memory, the museum unveiled it with Joseph Elliot’s help that day.

“Hopefully,” Rodatz said, “it’ll stay where it belongs this time.”

Joseph Elliott spent a great deal of his time at Benjamin Lee Airfrield in the early 1940s, back when it was a massive Navy installation whose main purpose was to train pilots to land on aircraft carriers. The airfield was much different back then, it was home to more than 600 reserve ships called the mothball fleet.

The United States was at war. It was a time of tremendous change – 1945, the year Joseph Elliot married his wife, the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Germany surrendered, Franklin D. Roosevelt died. Times were changing and the veiled innocence of the years prior was just a memory passing below an SB2C Dive Bomber at 158 miles per hour.

“It’s kind of sad to me, to see everything change,” Norma Elliot said.

Joseph Elliot eventually made the rank of Lieutenant Commander and retired from the U.S. Navy after 28 years of service and thousands of airtime hours. The last four remaining members of his squadron, VF742, are spread across the U.S. Most members, in the passing of 71 years, have died of old age.

Luckily, Norma Elliot said, he was never called to any of the fighting, but she also adds how close it came when times were uncertain. Whether it was the Bay of Pigs or overseas warfare, the possibility of war was always there.

“We were just so thankful. Every night he went out, we were just thankful he came back. It was a dangerous thing he did all those years,” Norma said. “He was a daredevil. Yep, he was a daredevil.”