Paduckah B-17

[terveurn]

This was sent to me from the Hobbs AAF facebook page courtesy of Michael Faley (100th BG association)

Show that this B-17 was based at Hobbs AAF

Hobbs Paducah B-17.jpg

[Chris Brame]

Yep - I sent that photo plus the other Hobbs photos I've picked up from the LIFE magazine archive (three planes at Kingman), plus the accident report photos of 42-102894 #10 and 42-102895 #98, to Bobby Lee Silliman who runs the Hobbs Facebook page. Most of the photos he has are of B-17Fs, so some NMF G-models would be new. (Did you already have the images of '894 and '895 and the Laredo plane '877 in your collection? Hope you can use them!) I've also asked him to post the above image to the "You Know You're From Paducah, KY When..." Facebook page.

[terveurn]

Its like pulling teeth - you can only find bits and pieces of the field codes.

Even the accident reports are hit or miss - most of the time these fields ignore the field codes and just show the last three of the serial number - really, what is the point of having these codes if not used to identify the aircraft.

The must frustrating is just when you figure out where the code is hidden in the accident report, the next batch changes.

My best guess is each of the combat crew training groups was running around 80 aircraft (4 squadrons) so there has to be a lot more information someplace