Payne Field War Weary 17s

[Dan Johnson]

I've been on a cold streak lately, but got lucky last week. Images arrived today.

Three war weary 17s from Payne Field. Not sure on time frame but assume 45 or post war.

Checker Board/Lady Winifred


Combat vet "My 3rd Love"


another


Miss Windy City

[Steve Birdsall]

Colonel Frank Allen and his 97th Bomb Group crew with 42-38090.

[Dan Johnson]

Thats why i post these here. Thanks for that Steve!

[Chris Brame]

Great stuff Steve!
Did you (or Dan) get the photo of that sharktail B-17 named Willie?

[Dan Johnson]

Great stuff Steve!
Did you (or Dan) get the photo of that sharktail B-17 named Willie?

No on Willie, but i did work a deal out with the guy who had the photos above. They were from a pair of scrapbooks that have about 200 images taken by a vet who was at Payne field. Not all planes and not all 17s but lots of aircraft.

[menards2]

I've been on a cold streak lately, but got lucky last week. Images arrived today.


Combat vet "My 3rd Love"


another

54 mission insignia on that bird. I was always curious about some of these photos. It appears that at some point the "F" model was originally olive drab, then returned to natural metal finish. I would think that it would be a ton of work to strip an aircraft of its paint. Why was this done?

[Second Air Force]

Good thread, Steve.

Yes, it was rather hard to strip an entire B-17, usually done with gasoline and lots of elbow grease.

The B-24 mechanic in me is itching to know more about that semi-Carpetbagger camouflage on the B-24H/J in the background of one shot!

[menards2]

Yes, it was rather hard to strip an entire B-17, usually done with gasoline and lots of elbow grease.

The only reasoning I could think of, and this is just an educated guess... if the amount of replacement parts that needed to be used on a war weary model....IE stabilizers, wing panels,engines, cowlings, other fuselage... was it easier to strip the paint of the good parts than to repaint the replacement parts to match the original....Since by the end of the war everything was natural metal finish anyways.

[terveurn]

You find a lot of bare metal B-17F in late 1944 / 1945 in the training groups

As they went through deport level maintenance they were stripped.

[Chris Brame]

Here's an example: 42-3431 at Kingman. Started its career at Hobbs; went several other places after - any idea where it would have been stripped?

[terveurn]

her card does say she went though a major overhaul in September 1943 at Tinker But there was several bases that worked on the B-17 SAAD (San Antonio Air Depot), MOAD and Tinker all were big depots.