Will The Real Memphis Bell Co-Pilot Please Stand Up

[Jack Cook]

Jim Verinis flew 6 missions on the Belle 1 has pilot and 5 has co-pilot. If Bob Morgan only flew 24, which B-17 did he fly his 25th?? Who flew the the other 20 missions has co-pilot. The Memphis Belle webpage has a lot of gaps on who actually flew on her in combat. Any answers??

Capt Jim Verinis and his crew of the ''Connecticut Yankee'' 324th BS 91st BG May 27, 1943 Bassingborne, UK

[mustangdriver]

Jack that picture was taken on May 17th 1943. Same day as the Belle's last mission.

Mission #1 Morgan/Verinis
Mission #2 Morgan/ Verinis
Mission #3 Morgan /Verinis
Mission #4 Morgan /Verinis
Mission #5Morgan/Freschauf (Verinis on Bad Penny)
Mission #6Verinis/J. Jackson (Morgan was sick Verinis acted as pilot)
Mission #7Morgan/Putman
Mission#8 Morgan/Wray
Mission#9 Morgan/Lt. Col. Lawrence
Mission#10Morgan/Aycock
Mission#11 Morgan/Aycock
Mission#12 Morgan/Aycock
Mission#13Morgan/Freschaf
Mission#14 Morgan/Freschaf
Mission#15Morgan/ Freschaf
Mission#16 Morgan/J. Smith
Mission#17 Ascock/J. Smith
Mission#18 Morgan/Miller
Mission#19Morgan/C. Debaun
Mission#20Anderson/D. Gladhart (Crew on leave in London except Nastal)

Mission#21Miller/Parker (crew off in London)
Mission#22Morgan/Miller
Mission#23Morgan/Aycock
Mission#24Anderson/Gladhart
Mission#25Anderson/?

These are the missions of the airframe. Now the crew had flown some missions without the Belle as it was down for repairs.

[mustangdriver]

Also the Belle flew more than 25 missions. The records of the 324th BS are not complete so alot of details are not know. Also it appears that He11's Angels may not have been first. Recently veterans started comparing aircraft log books with the records of the Bomb Group Associations and alot of the records do not match.

Another thing is that while the Belle was down for repairs The Belle crew flew two different B-17's.

[Jack Cook]

I've got a shiney silver dollar that says a PTO B-17 flew more than either and did it first!

[mustangdriver]

O.K.? Just trying to help you out man

[Jack Cook]

Not agruing just speculating. With the lack of records from the PTO there's nothing to back it up.
When you think about B-17s like Mustang, Suzy-Q or Black Jack they probably aren't showing on anyone's radar screen
So now who flew the Belle mission and what positions?

[mustangdriver]

I bet those guys in the PTO did some wild stuff man. That always seemed to be really brutal combat. Not that the ETO was better, but it just seemed like the PTO was more, go and bomb stuff we will sort it out later. If the records in the ETO was bad, I couldn't imagine what it was like in the PTO.

[mustangdriver]

I am at work right now, but for the most part Morgan and the Belle crew did fly most of their 25 missions together. I do have the roster for each mission but at home. It is odd but you almost need 4 lists. Morgan's 25 missions, Verinis's 25, and the airframe's 25. A large portion overlap. Morgan flew the Belle almost the entire time, unless it was down for repairs.

[Jack Cook]

with Nastal only flying 1 mission, Verinis 6, 3 FEs, x numbers of CP's
and x numbers of rt WGs it leaves for a lot of blanks.
Did any actually fly ALL 25 in the MB????

[mustangdriver]

I doubt it. I think most flew together as a crew but a few missions were flown in other aircraft.

[bomberflight]

I can recommend the new book on this topic, "Memphis Belle - Dispelling The Myths" by Graham Simons and Harry Friedman.

They've spent 30 years studying all the available source material, including the crew chiefs log for the "Belle".

The book runs to 600 pages and will set you back 120 dollars.

They have conclusive evidence that the Belle flew 24 missions ~ piloted as per Mustang Drivers list. Evidence for the 25th mission is still shrouded in mystery.

The "Belle" left on other missions but these were aborted. Defining what was a scub / abort and what was classed as a mission is a major headache.

So for example ~ a simple list of 25th mission flown for these aircraft .....

41-24577 "Hells Angels" 25th mission ~ May 13th '43
41-24480 "Bad Penny" 25th mission ~ May 15th '43
42-2970 "Connecticut Yankee" 25th mission ~ May 19th '43
41-24485 "Memphis Belle" 24th mission ~ May 19th '43

overlooks the fact that "Hells Angels" brought its bombs back on three of these ~ the "Belle" brought hers back on one.

If you discount those missions ~ "Hells Angels" flew it's 25th ( 28th ) mission on May 17th '43.

I don't think we will never know for sure which B-17 flew 25 missions first, but the authors think an 8th AF B-24 Liberator may have reached this goal first, because they flew more of the early missions.

The important fact is that the "Memphis Belle" was the aircraft selected, along with crew members who had ( or were very near ) 25 missions to go back to the USA and sell the concept of air power to the public.

And the reason why it was chosen was that William Wyler and his film crew were based at Basinbourn, the home of the 91st Bomb Group.

The film was a war time story to evidence why the 8th Air Force needed public support. The film is not and never was a 100 per cent factual documentary ......

Having shot so much film footage, it would have been a disaster if the "Belle" and chosen crew were lost trying to complete their final missions.

Who at that time would have worried about future historians spending years of reseach trying to establish exaclty when pilot A or pilot B flew his 24th or 25th mission.

The War Bond tour by the "Belle" and it's crew was so succesful that it thwarted the US Navy plan to stop the building bombers and convert Boeing production to long range transports to support the Pacific fleet.

The "Memphis Belle" can be said therefore to have saved the 8th AF and therefore possibly the war in Europe. In this respect then, this aircraft is the most significant preserved airframe from that era.

For there efforts the authors have recieved threats and been refused book review space in avaition journals because of the upset the book has caused.

The "Membis Belle" brand is still big business ~ more that 65 years after it became famous. It's story is far from over !

Last edited by bomberflight on Sat Dec 27, 2008 4:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

[Randy Haskin]

overlooks the fact that "Hells Angels" brought its bombs back on three of these ~ the "Belle" brought hers back on one.

What difference does that make?

Did they cross into indian territory? That's what counts as a "combat mission" -- not if they made it all the way to the target, nor if they actually got their ordnance on the target.

[bomberflight]

Hi Randy !

It's a good point ! Having ready a lot of books about the Mighty 8th, gaining credit for a mission could be down to a single flak burst being sighted prior to the abort or recall signal.

Bringing the bombs back could be seen as sensible in conserving stocks or downright dangerous.

And crews were sometimes credited with a double mission count if a trip was deemed to have by particularly rough.

As far as most ground crews were concerned if they arm and fuel the airplane and it comes back without the bombs ~ it's flown a mission.

For the crews things are different. If they jettesoned the load due to an abort ~ the trip may not be credited as a mission.

Bringing the bombs BACK just complicates matters even more.

So if we interviewed both the air and ground crews ~ you'd get different results and a different mission tally.

[Randy Haskin]

And crews were sometimes credited with a double mission count if a trip was deemed to have by particularly rough.

As far as most ground crews were concerned if they arm and fuel the airplane and it comes back without the bombs ~ it's flown a mission.

For the crews things are different. If they jettesoned the load due to an abort ~ the trip may not be credited as a mission.

Is there an "official" determination of what counts as a combat mission for 8th AF crews?

The current USAF guidance is that you actually have to be on-station for your ATO-assigned (or CAOC re-assigned) tasking for a sortie to count as a combat mission. That guidance is something that has actually changed over the course of the last 7 years, depending on the theater of operations and the status of operations there.

For example, when I was flying OIF in 2003 (before there were any bases for US aircraft in Iraq), it went in your records as combat time anytime you crossed the border from Kuwait into Iraq. Didn't matter if you got halfway to your assigned tasking and then had to air abort for a maintenance problem -- the fact that you were slogging your way through Iraqi AAA and SAMs meant that it was a combat counter.

By last summer when I went to Afghanistan the rules had changed. Because US aircraft were operating from airbases inside both Iraq and Afghanistan, the criteria of simply crossing into bad guy land wasn't enough. That's when the current guidance was enacted that you have to arrive at your fragged tasking for it to be a combat counter. That means that if I have a gear that won't retract after takeoff and I have to land shortly thereafter, it doesn't count. It means that if I take off, get 150 miles toward my tasking in Helmand province and have to turn back to Bagram because of a hydraulic failure...that, too, doesn't count as a combat mission.

So...what were the actual rules in the 8th? You mention the sighting of AAA....what were other rules?

[mustangdriver]

I have this book as well. Bought it in the NMUSAF gift shop. I have a few issues with the tone some of it is written in, and they also sort of spin the NMUSAF as the big evil guys that came and just took their plane when they even admitt in the book that the city of Memphis wanted nothing to do with the plane anymore, and that they couldn't preserve it on their own. Something had to be done, or we might have lost the Belle. Sitting in a half open tent is not how the most famous B-17 should be preserved.