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“As a retired aircraft mechanic, Roger has always loved airplanes. But he’s never met one like her. She’s a timeless symbol of World War II, and she’s come to him for help. She’s seen better days, and desperately needs his tender hands and passionate heart to help restore her to her former glory. This is the story of Roger Brigner, his love affair with “Belle,” and the lasting legacy their relationship will leave behind.”
Public domain film from the US Air Force.
see also:
Memphis Belle A Story of a Flying Fortress (color movie directed by William Wyler)
Memphis Belle is the nickname of a Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress during the Second World War that inspired the making of two motion pictures: a 1944 documentary film, Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress, and a 1990 Hollywood feature film, Memphis Belle. The aircraft was one of the first B-17 United States Army Air Corps heavy bombers to complete 25 combat missions with her crew intact. The aircraft and crew then returned to the United States to sell war bonds. The aircraft is undergoing extensive restoration at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio…
The Memphis Belle, a Boeing-built B-17F-10-BO, USAAC Serial No. 41-24485, was added to the USAAC inventory on 15 July 1942, and delivered in September 1942 to the 91st Bomb Group at Dow Field, Bangor, Maine. She deployed to Prestwick, Scotland, on 30 September 1942, to a temporary base at RAF Kimbolton on 1 October, and then to her permanent base at Bassingbourn, England, on 14 October. Each side of the fuselage bore the unit identification markings of the 324th Bomb Squadron (Heavy) – DF: A.
Captain Robert Morgan’s crew flew 29 combat missions with the 324th Bomb Squadron, all but four in the Memphis Belle…
The aircraft was then flown back to the United States on 8 June 1943, by a composite crew chosen by the Eighth Air Force from those who had flown combat aboard, led by Capt. Morgan, for a 31-city war bond tour…
After the war, the Memphis Belle was saved from reclamation at Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma where she had been consigned since 1 August 1945, by the efforts of the mayor of Memphis, Walter Chandler, and the city bought the B-17 for $350. She was flown to Memphis in July 1946 and stored until the summer of 1949 when she was placed on display at the National Guard armory near the city’s fairgrounds. She sat out-of-doors into the 1980s, slowly deteriorating due to weather and vandalism. Souvenir hunters removed almost all of the interior components. Eventually no instruments were left in the cockpit, and virtually every removable piece of the aircraft’s interior had been scavenged, often severing the aircraft’s wiring and control cables in the process.
In the early 1970s, another mayor had donated the historic aircraft back to the Air Force, but they allowed her to remain in Memphis contingent on her being maintained…
In September 2004, however, the National Museum of the United States Air Force, apparently tiring of the ups and downs of the city’s attempts to preserve the aircraft, indicated that they wanted her back for restoration and eventual display at the museum at Wright-Patterson AFB near Dayton, Ohio…
he Museum has placed restoration of Memphis Belle near the top of its priorities. In the magazine Friends Journal of the museum’s foundation, Major General Charles D. Metcalf, USAF (Ret), the director of the museum, stated that it might take eight to 10 years to fully restore the aircraft.
By the spring of 2009, considerable preparatory work had been accomplished, but the fuselage and wings were still disassembled…
