Aero Vintage Books

Memphis Belle, July 1976

Bunch of pics on evilpay of the belle back in the 50s and 60s.Kind of cool as when she was first put up and for some years after she had her training sqdn codes still in place.

Do you think that is the original paint on her back in '76?

Thanks for sharing. I saw her the summer of 1974 while heading back to Little Rock AFB from home up in Pa. She looks a little better in the picture. I wanted to get a picture myself however thought better of stopping owing to several factors.

KnockoutDropper wrote:Do you think that is the original paint on her back in '76?

No, Joe's photo shows the Memphis Belle with a repaint and limited "restoration" that was carried out in the 1960s. A young fellow complained about the sorry state of the plane and somebody decided to do something about it. Then they forgot about it for a few more years.

Steve, were you that young fellow??

No Scott, nice thought but not me . . . it was David Pitts, a 14-year-old from Pleasant Grove, Alabama, and he was present when the Memphis Belle was "re-dedicated" in July 1967. Wartime crew chief Joe Giambrone, pilot Bob Morgan and waist gunner Clarence "Bill" Winchell were there too.

I must have been too busy trying to get Shoo Shoo Shoo Baby back from France.

And Grateful are that you did Mr Birdsall!

I’ve put together a rough timeline for 41-24485’s appearance based on that bunch of newspaper archive photos on eBay.

July 1946 . . . 41-24485 delivered to Memphis . . . . the national insignia has been painted over but the original 1943 nose art and the MacDill training codes remain on the tail, fuselage and nose.

November 1946 . . . an article had appeared in The Commercial Appeal with the headline “Forgotten ‘Memphis Belle’ dies slowly” and perhaps as a result the B-17 was finally given “a place out of weather” and apparently stayed there until 1949.

May 1950 . . . by this time the Memphis Belle was displayed in the open on a concrete pedestal . All markings appear to be the same as they were in July 1946.

1952 . . . the plane was given a “facelift”, and perhaps this was when the Petty girl on the nose was "restored" in a style made famous more recently by Celia Giménez.

September 1961 . . . Margaret Polk, Bob Morgan, Vince Evans and Jim Verinis were photographed with the repainted plane. The MacDill code “M J5” was carefully reproduced on both sides of the fuselage, but not on the nose or tail. The photo below was taken in 1962.



November 1966 . . . thanks largely to the efforts of David Pitts, the plane was cleaned and repainted to fairly accurately represent her appearance in May 1943, and stayed that way until 1977.

Merry Christmas to all.

Thank you for sharing those great photos of the "Belle",and the time line helps alot. Happy Holidays to you and everyone here at Aero!!!

The nose plexiglass is still mostly intact on that date as well.Her original glass nose had been changed out sometime during her training stint as well as the top turret.Several years back I saw the nose glass and it was in pathetic shape from all the years of exposure.I have to make new ones for an F model and that is going to be some work.

HANG,

Would love to hear about the approach/method you will take in order to create a B-17 nose cone.

I wish it was as easy as 1/48 scale but it will have to be vacumed into a female mold.I made a couple back in the early 90s for Dave Tallichets Belle and here I am doing it again all these years later.

Just came across this group on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Memphis- ... 2385216388

Looks like there are several pictures of the Belle during her time in Memphis.