B-17E 41-2662 Record Card

[Steve Birdsall]

I'd like to ask for help deciphering the record card of Pacific Theater veteran 41-2662, Spawn of Hell.



I'm interested in that last cluster of entries in the four lines below "Ontario, Calif". I get the obvious stuff like Long Beach and Cincinatti Air Transport Commands, but I'd appreciate any advice regarding the other details. If I remember correctly, Dave had a theory about those dual storage numbers?

[terveurn]

556 is 556th AAFBU - or 7th Ferry Group (Long Beach)

Cincinnati - is ATC (HQ) - (Lunken Airport) - aircraft was assigned to ATC for final ferry orders


so on 17 May 45 41-2662 was assigned to 7th ATG (interesting it was already assigned to the 7th ATG - middle column is where the aircraft originated from / left column is where the aircraft was assigned)

On 30 May it was assigned to ATC (paper transfer) and ferried to Storage where it arrived on 30 May 1945


STNO is Storage Number

The only place I seen double STNO is Walnut Ridge.

cincinsti.JPG

cinc avon.JPG

[terveurn]

Just Checked the P-51 records -- they have a double STNO at Walnut Ridge for the P-51's

cinc P-51.JPG

Just checked the C-47's and found they used a Double STNO at Ontario (but this was 1946)

cinc Ontario.JPG

[Steve Birdsall]

Thanks Dave, that's very helpful. It surprises me that this one even returned from overseas - it had served with the 54th Troop Carrier Wing as an armed transport and they were mostly salvaged overseas.

[terveurn]

If I had to guess, I would think when the 375th converted to C-46's, this aircraft (like the others in the 375th) was used as a personnel transport for one of the big shots.

Somebody took their CB-17 home - unlike the others that were still being used in theatre (and later scrapped in the Philippines in 1947).

I would look to see who had CB-17's in 1944 (there can not be that many) and returned to the ZOI in May 1945 (again, how many theatre commanders returned in this time frame).

Since this card has no stateside assignments, it looks like it was used just the one trip.

Again, just my 2-cents.

* * *

Should also mention that Walnut Ridge was were a lot of the old combat veterans (B-17E's, B-17F's) were sent to be scrapped. I can think of over a dozen well known combat B-17F's that were sent to this depot.