B-17 in a lumber yard in Suha France in 1966

[Eric Roscoe]

I have photographs of the complete fuselage and separately stacked wings of a B-17 238160 in the above lumber yard. What happened to this B-17? A curious Brit now living in Canada.

[OldBillB17F]

I imagine it was one of the French Geographic mapping planes that was being scrapped. A few of their planes were rescued and exist today, but I am not sure on the serial numbers.

[jmkendall]

It does not come back as a serial of one of the French IGN planes. Nor does it appear in any list I have seen. Nor, do I think, that it is a good seriel for a B-17. Replace the first digit with a "3" and it would be good for a B-17G-B0

I would love to see a pic of this plane

Joe

[Jeff Wilkinson]

From Baugher's list:

B-17G-30-DL 42-38160 (385th BG, 550th BS, *Lonesome Polecat*) badly damaged by Fw 190s over Germany Mar 16, 1944 and made for Switzerland, landing in the Zugersee after all crew except pilot had baled out; navigator died when his parachute failed to open. MACR 3246.
Aircraft raised 1952 and used as travelling exhibit for a year, then dumped
in field at Suhr until sold for scrap 1972.

[OldBillB17F]

Refer to this thread on Lonesome Polecat.

http://aerovintage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=156

[Eric Roscoe]

Thanks to OldBillB17F, JMK and Jeff W.

I now realize that my photographic record book of all my colour slides (3000 of them) was wrongly written as SUHA for this B-17. A web search quickly revealed SUHR (handwritten A looks like an R) to be in Switzerland.

OldBillB17F thought it might have been one of the French Institut Geographique National (IGN) B-17's. I photograghed 6 of them at Criel in France in 1965, on the line with a Hurel Dubois HD -37 (very high aspect ratio wing a/c). All a/c's were French civil registered.

Thanks Jeff for the accurate answer. Thanks JMK for the input.

[Eric Roscoe]

Jeff mentioned that it was a travelling exhibit. Pulled out my colour slides and examined them closely. Clearly is was put in the lumber yard after being a travelling exhibit. In the slides it still has "A" frames attached to the fuelage wing roots on either side with a truck style axle between the "A" frames. Clearly it was towed around as a travelling exhibit, tail first.

The serial number is very clear on the tail. The G has disappeared but the J is very visible.

There is no sign of the Lonesome Polecat name on either side, yet the skin on both sides is complete. The chunk in the Dutch museum with the name on it must have been taken off and then new skin applied at the time.

Also looked at the IGN colour slides. These B-17's have very large French civil registration letters but no visible serial numbers.

[OldBillB17F]

Would you mind sharing the picture you have of Lonesome Polecat?

[Eric Roscoe]

No problem sharing with you interested people. Trouble is even if I get the slides printed, I don't have scanning capability.

[Jeff Wilkinson]

Glad to be of help, Eric! Too bad I live too far away to help you scan those slides....you have a real treasure of history.

[Eric Roscoe]

Thanks for the offer Jeff to scan them. I will send you two prints of this B-17 to your Wreckchasing address. Please scan them and put them on this forum so that those who replied to me get the opportunity to see them. Thanks to all. Photographs were taken on May 31, 1966.

Out of interest - now I get all my facts right about Suhr - on the very same day in 1966, I was at the Swiss Air Force base at Dubendorf. Photographed some a/c's of the Swiss Air Force - Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneer, Junkers 52 and some DH Venoms. Always interesting to look back. Been photographing a/c's since 1963 and still doing it.

[Jeff Wilkinson]

I'll keep a watch for them and get them up quickly.

[Eric Roscoe]

Hi Jeff. Got the two B-17 prints. I asked for them to be lightened up a little but that did not seem to work out. They are a little darker than the originals.

In the prints it looks as though the "A" frames are sitting on the ground. I get the impression that the centre strut of each "A" frame is some kind of jacking screw to lower the truck axle for transportation of the fuselage.

I will mail the prints to you on Thursday 5 April to your Wreckchaser address. Merci bien from Canada for offering to post them on this forum for the other interested folks.

[Jeff Wilkinson]

The photos from Eric arrived today, so I scanned them in and have them hosted. In order to conserve bandwidth for our dial-up brethren, the ones on this page are smaller versions. The full size photos can be found here and here.

[OldBillB17F]

Thanks for posting these great photos!