My father had 1,928 hours in KC-97s as a boom operator between 10 November 1952 and 28 August 1957 while based at March Field. Twenty-three days later (19 September 1957) he was at Castle flying in KC-135's. I wish I could remember the KC-97 days but I was only a little over 2 years old when we moved from Riverside to Merced, CA.
Of all the serials I have gleaned from his logbooks I have not confirmed any surviving airframes among them. If anyone knows of one mentioned below, even a partial airframe, I'd be interested.
The earliest serial I find in his logbooks was KC-97E-40-BO, 51-205. He had multiple missions in every one of the Boeings between serial 51-271 and 51-289. except I find nothing entered for ship 51-276. I found missions in many logs for the serials 52-2749 thru 52-2758 inclusive, all G-28 models. Several missions in an odd-duck KC-97F-18-BO, 51-395. The newest (or latest) serial in the books I found was KC-97G, 53-117, No others recorded in the 53-xxx series but his crew was in this one often after July of 1955.
Photo below is KC-97F-60-BO, 51-281 (c/n 16348) probably taken on 23 January 1953 when a 5-ship formation XC of KC-97s left March Field for flight to Reno, Nevada and back, with some local instrument practice. He was in 51-281 a lot including his second to last KC-97 mission on 27 Aug 1957.
Unrelated to the survivors, but interesting...The other two pics had no notes so I don't know any details or dates. I wonder if the broken booms were a very common occurrence?
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