As we've discussed in previous videos, the pilots, particularly the flying aces,
of World War II scored much of the glory; they were not only brave but sharp and often
brimming with charisma. Though, sometimes, the aircraft themselves took all the glory,
more even than their pilots and crew. The Memphis Belle is one of such aircraft. She
is almost a character in herself, a hero of war whose name brought, and continues to bring,
a tingle through the spine of all who hear it. The Belle is an American icon, a celebrity,
and her crew are legendary. Though it wasn't all glorious and jolly. It was war. And that not one
of her crewman perished in her can be attributed to nothing short of divine intervention.
In this video, we're getting into the cockpit of the Memphis Belle, taking a look at what
she was and still is, who her crew were and how they survived to become legend,
and how the Belle herself survived both the Second World War and her journey after it.
So what was the Belle, other than a skyborne bastion of hope for the American people? Well,
she was a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, the B-17F-BO variant, to be specific,
of which 2,300 were produced primarily for use by USAAF and RAF airmen in the Second
World War. These aircraft were quite literally flying fortresses, able to take a whole lot
of punishment and dish out even more. Flexible .50-calibre machine guns jutted out from every
crucial position of the craft, including from the nose, and, as bombers, B-17F-BOs rained accurate
hell upon targets thousands of feet/metres below. With turbosupercharged engines, they were able to
fly through the realm of the Zeus himself, some 30,000 feet or 9144 meters up, and cut through the
air at speeds of up to 325 miles or 523 kilometres per hour, and this was while carrying up to 8,000
pounds or 3,628 kilograms of bombs. Overall, the B-17Fs were the fastest variants and primary heavy
bombers in the early days of the strategic bombing campaign, which we'll get to soon.
A fortress without men to defend it can only deflect its attackers for so long,
and the Belle needed a crew of ten to operate at maximum capacity. While the crew changed a little
throughout the Belle's 25 missions, these were the crew members and their positions
after they touched the ground following the Belle's final combat mission in May 1943:
Harold Loch was the Belle's top turret gunner/engineer;
Cecil Scott was her ball turret gunner; Robert Hanson was her radio operator;
James Verinis washer was her copilot; Robert Morgan was her pilot; Charles Leighton was her
navigator; John Quinlan was her tail gunner; Casimer Nastal was one of her waist gunners;
Vincent Evans was her bombardier, and Clarence Winchell was the other of her waist gunners.
In the words of Robert Morgan, the Belle's pilot, "If you want in just one word how we
were able to go through the hell of Europe 25 times and get back home…the word is TEAMWORK."
While that summarises it how the Belle and her crew survived World War II,
it's worth taking a look at a couple of the specific scenarios they flew out of alive,
though to better appreciate those, it helps first to understand the
objectives of the campaign in which the Belle and many other B-17s flew.
While B-17s saw action in the Pacific theatre prior, the USAAF sent them to
England in July 1942, where they joined the US Eight Air Force. Out of England,
the B-17s in the US Eighth started bombing Germany and German-occupied France, Belgium,
and the Netherlands during daylight, a tactic which was discouraged prior to its effectiveness
in this period and was again discouraged when the Germans stepped up their game and countered it
later in 1943. As per the joint objectives of the USAAF and RAF in the Combined Bomber Offensive,
or CBO, "[The] primary objective [of the CBO] will be the progressive destruction and dislocation of
the German military, industrial, and economic system and the undermining of the morale of the
German people to a point where their capacity for armed resistance is fatally weakened." Of these,
German aircraft industry targets were of the highest priority. While the CBO proved
quite effective for the latter half of 1942 and the first half of 1943, it was, again,
countered heavily by the Germans in 1943, with only around 25% of the US Eighth Air Force's
bomber crewmen making it to 25 missions; the remaining 75% were killed, wounded, or captured.
The Belle herself was part of the 91st Bombardment Group, and,
after jumping between bases in England for a bit, she flew exclusively out of the RAF
base in Bassingbourn as part of the 324th Bomb Squadron. Her 25 missions were all strategic
bombings over Germany and France, with the exception of one on the 31st of March 1943
over the Netherlands. Between her first combat mission on the 7th of November 1942 over Brest,
France and her last on the 19 May 1943 over Kiel, Germany, she not only obliterated key
ground targets but also claimed 8 confirmed kills against German aircraft in the air.
During the Belle's fifth mission, on the 20th December 1942, flown over Romilly-sur-Seine,
France, she dropped her load on German aircraft hangars and depots,
laying waste to around 100 fighters before they could get off the ground and blowing
a German mess hall to Hades while the officers inside were eating lunch. On this same mission,
the Belle was assaulted by some 25 German fighters who actually made it into the air
and who shot two other B-17s out of the sky before her eyes. These fighters peppered the
Belle for two hours, though, being the fortress she was, she shrugged them off.
Perhaps her closest call was her ninth mission, flown over Lorient,
France on the 23rd of January 1943. Here, she was targetting German submarine pens,
and while she was soaring through a cloud of German fighters and flak,
she was set in the sights of a Focke Wulf Fw-190, who charged her head-on. The Belle couldn't dive,
as she was in such a tight formation with her squad, so she pulled up instead, and
the oncoming Focke spat a shell into her tail, blasting off a large chunk of it and wrapping
what was left of it in flames. After the wind had swatted the flames out, pilot Robert Morgan
somehow flew the Belle for two hours all the way back to Bassingbourn and set her down safely.
After 17 more missions, the crewmen of the Belle became one of those 25%-ers who made
it to 25 missions, and the Belle then went on to fly perhaps her most important mission of all.
After touching down in the States on the 8th of June 1943, she went on a 31-city war bond tour,
doing wonders for American morale and the funding of the war and skyrocketing her fame
past her maximum ceiling of 37,500 feet. The Belle's crew was also bolstered by the
addition of "Stuka," her Scottish terrier mascot, and Morgan more than once dazzled
the crowd with daring aerial stunts such as "buzzing" rooftops and turning the Belle on
her side to squeeze between buildings; he could easily have been court-martialed.
Like many humans who survived the war, the Belle soon after began a slow deterioration,
corroding and having her insides literally torn out by scavengers while on display. Unlike humans,
however, the aircraft can be restored, and, after the National Museum of the United States
Air Force finally got the husk that remained of the Memphis Belle into their careful hands,
they did an incredible job restoring her to her post-25-missions self. To put how long
the Belle was passed on, left to corrode, and then passed on again into perspective,
it wasn't until May 2018, after the National Museum had held and restored her for 14 years,
that she was unveiled in all her former glory.
Also, we mustn't forget that there was a documentary made about the Belle,
The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress,
which brought her more fame than even her war bond tour when it was released in 1944. Nor can
we forget the 1990 Memphis Belle film, a fictionalization of the documentary,
and both of these productions helped the National Museum immensely in their restoration efforts.
Like Morgan, said, it was all about "TEAMWORK," and it certainly took teamwork to keep the
Memphis Belle in the air during World War II and relatively in once piece after the
war. Her's is a story more potent even than those of wartime heroes and celebrities,
and she will stand as an American icon for as long as America stands.
Though what are your thoughts? Does the Belle get too much attention? Are there other B-17s
that deserve it more, other aircraft? Please let us know down in the comments.