The sudden end of World War II in August 1945 brought a tremendous upheaval to the American airplane manufacturers. Adjustments to contracts had already occurred earlier in the year, in mid-May, after V-E Day, as the U.S. Army Air Forces (AAF) and the War Department analyzed the lessened weapons requirements as the war effort was suddenly halved. However, most war planners fully expected the war against Japan to extend well through 1946 and possibly into 1947. The first invasion of Japan proper, code named Operation Olympic, was set for November 1, 1945. The invasion of the main island of Honshu, code named Operation Coronet, was planned for March 1, 1946. Much effort was being made to gather the air, ground, and sea forces together, and this meant both shifting resources from the now-quiet European Theater of Operations and continued production of new weapons.
Douglas B-17 Production Contracts
The Douglas Aircraft Co. was building B-17s, A-26s, and C-47s at its manufacturing plant located at Long Beach, California. Douglas produced B-17s under three Air Corps contracts. The first, AC-20921, initially ordered 600 B-17Fs (s/n 42-2964 through 42-3563). The last aircraft was delivered as a B-17G. Two supplements to the first contract ordered an additional 500 B-17Gs (s/n 42-37714/38213) and 250 B-17Gs (s/n 42-106984/107233). The second contract, AC-49932, ordered 1,000 B-17Gs (s/n 44-6001/7000). The third contract, AC-1862, was approved on June 1, 1944 and ordered 650 B-17Gs (s/n 44-83236/83885).
A Fourth Douglas B-17 Contract (AAF serials 45-7701 to 45-8300)
What isn’t widely known is that there was actually a fourth contract, AC-4335, that was approved in December 1944 and placed an additional 600 B-17Gs under order. These aircraft were assigned serials between 45-7701 and 45-8300. Two subsequent contract supplements to AC-4335 ordered an additional 975 and 350 aircraft respectively. These aircraft were also assigned AAF serials but these remain unknown. Thus, in addition to the 3,000 Douglas B-17s actually delivered, another 1,925 B-17Gs were under order when the war ended.
Boeing production peaked in March 1944 when it delivered 362 B-17Gs from its Boeing Field plant. The Boeing rate fell off to about 100 deliveries per month through the fall of 1944, with production of B-17Gs ending in April 1945. Both Douglas and Vega averaged about 100 deliveries per month from the summer of 1943 through the end of production in the summer of 1945. Douglas delivered 104 B-17Gs in May, eighty-six in June, and forty in July 1945 to complete the production run.
Most of the output for May and June, and half the output for July, were flown directly to Syracuse, New York, and placed into short-term storage. In October, most of the stored Syracuse B-17Gs, numbering several hundred, were flown either to Kingman, Arizona, or Altus, Oklahoma, for transfer to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) and eventual scrapping. The other half of the July output, totaling nineteen B-17Gs, was diverted from the AAF to the Navy for conversion to PB-1W early-warning aircraft. The last serialed B-17G, s/n 44-83885, built by Douglas was delivered to the AAF on July 28. The last B-17G delivered by Douglas was s/n 44-83882, accepted by the AAF on July 31. (For more about both the scrapping of surplus B-17s and the use of Navy PB-1Ws, see Final Cut: The Post-War B-17 Flying Fortress and Survivors.)
However, like trying to shift into reverse an automobile moving forward, there was much grinding going on at Douglas and dozens of other major aircraft factories as the momentum of production was suddenly halted. Even though most of the B-17s built through the late spring and early summer of 1945 were clearly excess to AAF needs, the production output continued. While the AAF analyzed its reduced B-17 requirements, Long Beach began building on the AC-4335 contract. At least six B-17Gs, and possibly another dozen, were evidently assembled in July before the order came down from the AAF to halt all production immediately. Many of these airplanes appear to have been completed aside from the Government Furnished Equipment (GFE) that included engines, propellers, and armament. They wore AAF serials beginning with 45-7701. Undoubtedly, there were probably a number of other airframes partially completed on the assembly line when the production was halted.
The Undelivered B-17s
For the completed but undelivered B-17s, they were towed out into a field in front of the production plant and parked. The other material, such as tooling and partially completed assemblies, were placed in outside storage while the AAF and Douglas began the long process of settling the termination of the contracts. Details of the contract settlements are no doubt tucked away on some roll of government microfilm somewhere, but it has yet to be uncovered. Presumably, Douglas was appropriately compensated for its termination costs and was left to dispose of the excess material on its own.
Through the late summer of 1945, Douglas was completing the prototype for the large C-74 Globemaster transport. It is interesting to note that many of the photos taken of the C-74 on the ramp at Douglas show at least six complete and three incomplete B-17Gs parked in the field. Photos of the first flight of the C-74, accomplished on September 5, 1945, show a number of B-17s still parked along with dozens of A-26s.
Sometime later in the autumn or early winter of 1945-46, the assembled excess materials and airplanes were broken up and scrapped. Similar situations existed at most of the other production facilities. Examining the B-17 production record at Vega (at nearby Burbank), the last 100 B-17Gs on the contract were cancelled (serials 44-85842 through 44-85941). There were most likely additional B-17 production contracts in place that were also canceled. One suspects that a reserved block of serials, 45-6701 to 45-7700, totaling 1,000 aircraft, were assigned to these Vega B-17s. Doubtless that some of these airframes were also built but never delivered.
So, a little known footnote to the saga of the B-17…the B-17s that never were.