Famous WWII Memphis Belle bomber found in Altus

When it comes to World War II, there is no shortage of brave and amazing stories of how ordinary men defied the odds to achieve legendary status. Easy Company is famous Band of brothersthe infamous true story of the real “Dirty Dozen”, the Tuskegee Airmenthe Raid Doolittleand of course the Beautiful Memphis among countless others.

If you were an enlisted airman in the pre-US Air Force Air Force during World War II, chances are you’re under 25 and have a near-acceptable average life expectancy. of four flight missions over Europe in the fight against the Nazis. Germany. If you were lucky enough to be assigned as part of a B-17 Flying Fortress crew, that number increased to eleven missions on average, less than half of the typical scheduled deployment.

25 bombing missions was the golden number for American bombers in World War II. By the time you managed to land after that last mission, you and your plane were flying back to the United States to tour the country as heroes in an attempt to sell war bonds, but very few made it to mission 25 In fact, the Memphis Belle crew had a few numbers up until Mission 24, and the legend was made during that last bombing in 1943.

If you’ve seen the movie, the team survived despite the unimaginable odds. Some might even call it luck that the crew never suffered a single casualty. When they returned to the United States to tour for the War Bond campaign, the aircraft was inevitably reassigned for use in training, but almost immediately after America won its second war world, it was shipped to the cemetery to be looted and scrapped, left to deteriorate in a field in southwestern Oklahoma.

It’s amazing to think that a generation could just rise up and let go of such a rich history, but as we’ve seen over time, when a war is over, people will do just about anything to drop such a controversial event in time. World War II was a brutal and justified campaign against unimaginable evil. It was the time of peace and the world was trying to move on. Finish the old, make way for the new.

Altus Air Force Base – named Altus Army Air Field at the time – became the resting place of the famous Memphis Belle B-17. He was put out to pasture with hundreds of others all waiting to be scrapped for aluminum, copper, instruments, etc. when a sharp-eyed Airman from Memphis spotted him in the cemetery and contacted the mayor of Memphis in late 1945. After a few phone calls, the city of Memphis purchased the aircraft from Altus AAF for $350.

It had already been stripped of instruments and small totems by souvenir hunters, but a crew reassembled it with salvaged parts just in time to bring it back to Memphis. It remained on display there until 2005, when it was transferred to the National Museum of the United State Air Force in Ohio, where it now rests 100% restored.

Although Oklahoma plays a small role in the Memphis Belle’s very long history, it’s amazing how close we’ve come to losing it in the name of recycling.