Memphis Belle Vandalized

[Jack Cook]

Kilroy Was Here!

[Zachary]

You're a sly one Mr. Cook...

Zack

[mustangdriver]

Nice. That was actually a staged photo to show off the battle damage to the tail stinger.

[Mark_Pilkington]

.
I thought they were playing "noughts and crosses" in chalk on the tail?

smiles
Mark Pilkington

[Vessbot]

Heheh. Reminds me of one of the T-6es (polished) in the ride company I used to fly for... when our mechanic first pointed out to me that someone had scratched his name into the left wing leading edge. I just about flipped out that someone would do that, but upon closer inspection, it was actually a cadet that had trained in that plane in WWII. Below his name was the training squadron. Although "vandalized" originally, now I think it's a pretty cool little piece of the past, frozen in time, flying around 70 years later.

[John Dupre]

I remember reading that at some of the WW2 training fields it is not uncommon to find names of servicemen painted on to the ramps with tar taken from the expansion joints, still visible 60+ years later.

[mustangdriver]

Actually the rear fuselage of the Belle is etched with names of all of the members of the 324th Bomb Squadron wishing them well. It is not visible when painted. It is pretty cool. The names are being documented efore the aircraft is repainted.

[Holedigger]

And here I thought it was going to be another "Slam Static Museum threads" and I was avoiding it! How about those 5000th and 10,000 plane builds signed by the factory workers! Those are really cool. Too bad none of those survived. Had a client in the other day, he saw one of my B-17 profiles hanging on the wall, He grew up in CA during the war years, his mom helping build 17s. So we talked warbirds for a good while!

http://blog.oregonlive.com/nwheadlines/ ... ge_b17.jpg
http://www.brightok.net/~gsimmons/5000B17.jpg