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MacDill B-17G Linda Sue! - ID?

Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 10:25 pm
by Chris Brame
While doing yet another B-17G trainer photo search, I found one with a story behind it but no serial yet:
Image
From the December 2014 issue of American Indian magazine there's an article about a Kiowa man named Horace Poolaw, who was based at MacDill Field training aerial photographers, and doing some photography himself. From the article:
But Poolaw had made one particular acquaintance among the German POWs, a man Corky remembers as Kraus. Kraus was an artist, and used one of the photographs of Linda that her father had taken during a precious visit home as a model to paint her portrait on the fuselage of a B-17. The plane was henceforth dubbed the “Linda Sue.” Although Horace took a self-portrait with the final artwork, his children can’t be sure whether the man standing next to him is the talented painter; he remains unidentified.
So, are there any other photos of Linda Sue! known to exist, showing the serial? The tail and fuselage code would have been M S4. Note that it has the small windows in the windscreen, and didn't go through the Cheyenne mod center (no cheek guns).

Link to the article: http://www.americanindianmagazine.org/s ... -and-white

Over to the experts...

Re: MacDill B-17G Linda Sue! - ID?

Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2016 4:53 pm
by terveurn
now we have a name to go with the tail ID

42-102726 is MacDill M - S4

Re: MacDill B-17G Linda Sue! - ID?

Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2016 4:55 pm
by terveurn
more from accident report
42-102726 c.JPG

Re: MacDill B-17G Linda Sue! - ID?

Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2016 4:58 pm
by terveurn
the other photo is him standing in front of M-Q1 which is still an unknown....

Re: MacDill B-17G Linda Sue! - ID?

Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2016 10:10 pm
by Chris Brame
Nice work terveurn! I imagine Horace was pretty disappointed to see the nose art get crunched.

Working now on digging up images of five B-17Gs from that series: 42-102865, 67, 77, 95 and 97, from accident reports. They were from four batches of five each that didn't go through Cheyenne, and I want to verify once and for all if any past 42-102800 didn't have cheek guns. (I have a lead on one.)

Re: MacDill B-17G Linda Sue! - ID?

Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2016 10:28 pm
by Steve Birdsall
Nice work all round I'd say.

Re: MacDill B-17G Linda Sue! - ID?

Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2016 10:33 pm
by terveurn
buy my book - has over 400 photos of these long serial numbers B-17 will answer a lot of your questions and you will not have to kill yourself reading the accident reports.

Did not find any B-17's after 42-102800 without the cheek windows being factory installed

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/069236546X
B-17 Book Cover small.jpg

Re: MacDill B-17G Linda Sue! - ID?

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2016 10:26 pm
by terveurn
Found M-Q1 - she is 42-102716.