After 25 missions, the crew and the Belle went on a War Bonds tour, stopping at Patterson Field in Ohio. Recalling the tour decades later, Commander Robert Morgan wrote: "In today's lingo, our uniforms were dazzling 'chick magnets.'" (Photo: USAF)Restoration: The Memphis Belle -- Air And Space Magazine
For this famous B-17, surviving 25 missions in World War II was the easy part.
Two years ago, Roger Deere traveled to an eastern Ohio coal town, where he visited a four-room Sears pre-fabricated house whose ceiling bowed down from the weight of all the stuff in the attic. The homeowner had died; a relative poking through the accumulation had run across something he thought might be of interest to Deere. Along with everything else, the attic contained the radio equipment for a B-17 bomber.
Deere did not ask how radio equipment got into the attic. He did not want an explanation; he wanted the equipment.
In time, it will be placed in the Memphis Belle, a Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress now being restored at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, where Deere is the chief of the restoration division.
During World War II, the U.S. Army Air Forces required heavy-bomber crews to complete 25 missions before they could go home. In 1943, having flown over France, Belgium, and Germany, the Memphis Belle crew became one of the first to reach that goal. After returning to the States in June 1943, the bomber and many of its crew served as the centerpiece of a 31-city War Bonds tour. Academy Award-winning director William Wyler documented the Belle’s service in a 41-minute color film (viewable online at the Internet Archive). The four-engine bomber became the most famous aircraft from the air war in Europe.
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