Aero Vintage Books

Some sweet shots, courtesy of the famed photojournalist. I have never seen these before. Some look as if they were taken yesterday! Enjoy.

Thank you for posting these amazing images! I have not seen these before.

Does anyone know what bomber group these aircraft served in? I am trying to find images of a "Bad Penny" with the 379th bomber group and these have made my day. Now if I could just figure out the tail number!

Michael

Yes, beautiful photos of some of the early 301st Bomb Group B-17Fs.

The fourth, seventh and eighth photos all show 41-24366, The Puffin’ Hussy II , with her pilot Lt Lee Maxwell waving from the cockpit in photo eight.

The Puffin’ Hussy II only flew six missions with the 301st Bomb Group before going to the air depot at La Senia, Oran, where Margaret Bourke-White found her being used for parts to repair another B-17, the 97th Bomb Group's Flying Flit Gun. I don’t know why the plane was there – it could have been due to battle damage or mechanical problems –
but The Puffin’ Hussy II was also repaired, perhaps when parts became more plentiful. Whatever happened, the B-17 was reassigned to the 99th Bomb Group on April 3, 1943 where she was renamed K.O. and flew eight more missions. Then she was back at La Senia in July and transferred again, this time to the 2nd Bomb Group, where she flew five missions before being transferred back to the 99th. She was finally declared war weary in March 1944 and then stripped down and reassigned to the 14th Fighter Group as a utility aircraft and used to carry mail, supplies and personnel.

The story finally ended when the old B-17 crashed and exploded coming in for a landing at Aghione, Corsica on August 19, 1944. Twelve of the fifteen people on the plane were killed, including the pilots, 1/Lt William T. Starbuck and Capt. Richard F. Halford.

"Bad Penny" was 41-24363 and is shown with Captain John Bruce's crew from the 32nd Bomb Squadron. "Bad Penny" was lost with the Bruce crew on its fifth mission, to Bizerte on November 28, 1942.

Wow, Great pics. This stuff just keeps popping up. And yes they do look like they were taken just yesterday. Hard to believe its been 70 years.

Fantastic pictures, thanks for posting.

Steve Birdsall wrote:Yes, beautiful photos of some of the early 301st Bomb Group B-17Fs.

"Bad Penny" was 41-24363 and is shown with Captain John Bruce's crew from the 32nd Bomb Squadron. "Bad Penny" was lost with the Bruce crew on its fifth mission, to Bizerte on November 28, 1942.

Steve,

What are the letters/numbers on the rear fuselage of "Bad Penny"?
Almost looks like an RAF designation. What is the history behind the plane
prior to her loss?

Bill, that's an Air Ministry serial, FA678, on Bad Penny. Nobody knows the full story but it looks as if Boeing assumed that these B-17s would form part of the British order for 300 B-17s. They applied the numbers FA675 through FA694 to B-17Fs 41-24360 through 41-24379, but none of those went to the Royal Air Force. (The British did get 19
B-17Fs from the first 300 produced at Seattle, but they carried the serials FA695 to FA713.)

Here's another example on the 301st Bomb Group's 41-24369 Special Delivery.

What happened to that bird to cause her to be cannibilzed? Anybody know? She still has the ball turret in place.

According to the often reliable but not infallible Pride of Seattle . . .

Special Delivery was "So badly damaged by flak on December 15, 1942 Bizerte mission that she was salvaged at Biskra".

Thank you Steve.I have seen that picture before and wondered what was the story.

WOW! What fantastic photos. It's amazing how some new photos keep popping up from time to time. You can definately tell these are done by a pro. Thank you for sharing these great photos, this is one of the reasons why I keep coming back to this fine web-site.

The Flying Flit Gun was named by Margaret Bourke-White and the 8th Chapter of her autobiography is devoted to this plane. It was a plane in the 97th bomb group and 340th squadron commanded by Col. Paul Tibbetts who was the pilot of the Red Gremlin (my dad's wing plane). I know this because my dad was the ball-turret gunner on the Flying Flit Gun and to form a squadron you had to have one officer and one enlisted person on paper...the first officer on paper was Paul Tibbetts...the first enlisted person was my dad Gerald C. Freligh Sr. Here is an unpublished photo of him cleaning the ball turret of the Flying Flit Gun...taken of course, by Margaret Bourke-White who went on a mission with them!

http://life.time.com/history/world-war- ... nd-1942/#1