Dispelling the Myths again - Part thirteen

 That ultimatum - and just who DID own the aircraft?
 

How could Colonel Uppstrom make such an ultimatum? Surely the aircraft belonged to the city of Memphis? At the time, many Memphians and members of the media believed that the Air Force had no right to lay claim the Memphis Belle. The US Government had sold thousands of surplus planes when the war was over. The plane would undoubtedly have been melted down with all the others if Mayor Walter Chandler had not gone to Washington and ‘bought’ it for $350. One would assume that the Federal Government - and therefore the Air Force - had no legal claim on the aircraft. But that was not the case.   

Above and below: TANG strip the aircraft of years of paint...

 The aircraft out at Memphis VOTEC

     It was not generally known that in the summer of 1977, when the National Guard required the plane to move off the Guard’s grounds, the American Legion did not feel that it could continue its custody of the aircraft. The Legion’s commander, William T. Jamison, wrote a letter to the Air Force, saying the Legion ‘...wished to relinquish control of the B-17 bomber known as the Memphis Belle.’ Then-Mayor Wyeth Chandler, stepson of former Mayor Walter Chandler, also wrote a letter to Ned Robinson, Chief of the Aircraft Disposition Office at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Ariz. who was responsible for keeping track of the location of military aircraft. Chandler stated: ‘The City of Memphis wishes to relinquish any claim to the B-17 bomber known as the Memphis Belle. The city does this so that the B-17 can be put on permanent loan to the Memphis Belle Memorial Association, Inc., for display in a suitable museum in our city’. Ned Robinson explained that this was necessary because records of the aircraft’s ‘donation’ were destroyed in a 1962 fire at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton Ohio. ‘What we are doing is just getting the title straight to the aircraft and putting it in military hands’. Robinson continued, stating that the Air Force would take control of the bomber ‘...to insure that the airplane is kept in good order’

 

 

Advertsing the CAF Airsho, fundraising for the Belle

    So was the the aircraft turned over to the Air Force or to the MBMA? Chandler’s letter suggests that he turned it over to the MBMA, but Robinson’s comments suggests it was now in the hands of the Air Force, However, if it is believed that Chandler’s letter was intended to give the plane back to the Air Force, then why did it make no effort at the time to take custody of the machine? The 1962 fire removed a lot of evidence, but the fact was that nine years passed before Colonel Uppstrom’s ultimatum. The matter was investigated, and it was discovered that not only was there doubt if the aircraft now belonged to the Air Force or to the MBMA, there was serious doubts as to whether Mayor Chandler did in fact ‘buy’ the aircraft in the first place!

 Talking to the public and raising funds for the Belle

    The Memphis Belle Memorial Association was reorganized again. Several members who had fought the battle for a long time, convened a meeting of the board of directors. George T. Lewis, Chancery Court Judge, called for an election of new officers. The old officers had had their chance. It was time to let someone else fight the final battle. Frank Donofrio was restored as president of the Association.

 

 CAF airsho, raising funds for the Belle

    One man who provided a turning point for the new Association was Fred Smith, dynamic president of Federal Express, a major new industry that Smith had created from scratch, providing a nationwide aviation network of overnight package and freight delivery. Smith announced that he was donating $100,000. His next contribution was to use his powers of persuasion with Boeing executives in Seattle, Washington. It had not been the first time that Boeing executives had heard about the project. Colonel Immanuel J. Klette, last commander of the 91st Bomb Group, had already approached them and laid the groundwork.

    Harry Friedman remembers the incident: “Fred Smith was buying some planes from Boeing for his business. He suggested to the Boeing people that they ought to contribute $100,000 to the Memphis Belle project. After all, it was Boeing which had built the plane. They donated the $100,000.” 

   The ABC-TV Network joined the campaign effort by volunteering to do a segment about the Memphis Belle on their popular 20/20 news magazine program, which is broadcast nationwide. Anchorman Hugh Downs showed scenes from the old Memphis Belle  film and described the plight of the plane. This brought in hundreds of letters with donations from the show’s audience.The aircraft underwent a program of Restoration - some was cosmetic, some much more detailed. Then on September 11 1986 came the last flight. Everyone thought that the last flight the Memphis Belle made occurred when Bob Little brought the aircraft in for its final landing at Memphis Airport on July 17 1946 - but it seems that the aircraft never read that story!

 Bob Morgan and Hugh Downs inside the aircraft.

    Charles ‘Chuck’ Shelly, an instructor at the Vo-Tech School takes up the story: ‘We had the Belle staked to the ground with tie-down stakes driven five feet into the ground about thirty feet from our hangar. It was a bit stormy and had just started to rain. I decided to close the hangar door. I pushed the button and the door started to close when the power went out. The door never came all the way down. I was just standing there with my students when suddenly the Memphis Belle took off. Believe me, she was completely off the ground. She had pulled those tie-down stakes right out of the ground. There was an seven foot high aircraft servicing platform between the Belle and our building, and she cleared that without even knocking it over. The aircraft came to rest with one wing protruding into the building. If that door had closed when I wanted it to, the wing would’ve crashed into it. As it was, the wing just brushed the ground and was soon repaired. At least sixty students saw it happen, so did John Steinriede, another instructor - it seems she wanted to feel the wind beneath her wings one last time’.     

 Dr Harry Friedman by the nose hatch door.

     Memphians, who had so long waited for something to happen, could hardly believe their ears when on July 31, 1986, they were told that the Memphis Belle Restoration and Museum Fund Drive had gone over the top. Frank Donofrio, the man at the head of the project said of the time, ‘...My biggest problem was to keep everyone headed in the same direction!’ 

     The Tennessee Air National Guard became involved again, along with help from the 97th Bomb Wing at Blytheville Air Force Base, and another serious restoration program and re-painting began.

Mud Island
The weekend of May 16/17 1987 would be THE weekend - it was an obvious choice, it was the anniversary of the day in 1943 when Robert K. Morgan and five members of his crew had completed their designated quota of 25 combat missions. Perhaps Frank Donofrio and the Memphis Belle Memorial Association could be forgiven, for after such a long, struggle to provide what they thought would be the final home for the Memphis Belle, it was understandable that they wanted to make the dedication of that home the most grand of occasions.

    The theme selected for the weekend was simply ‘Home At Last’. The eight surviving members of the crew that had brought the plane home in triumph in 1943 would, of course, be invited. Seven of the crew; Bob Morgan, Jim Verinis, Charles Leighton, Bill Winchell, Bob Hanson, Cass Nastal and Harold Loch accepted. It had been hoped that J. P. Quinlan, the feisty tail gunner, would be coming, too, but he had been having health problems, and his doctor advised against it. Norma Scott, widow of Cecil Scott, who had died of a heart attack, would come to represent him. Peggy Evans, sister of bombardier Vince Evans, who died in a plane crash in California in 1980, would represent her brother. Margaret Polk, the other Memphis belle, would also be there with a place of honor reserved for her.

    Come the Sunday and thousands of Memphis citizens and visitors from out of town jammed the monorail cars to Mud Island, where the aircraft was enthroned in the new museum. Thousands more walked across the pedestrian bridge to the island or crowded the river bluffs on the Memphis side from where they could look down on the ceremony.

    In brilliant May sunshine citizens heard the speeches and the introductions of various notables. Mayor Hackett spoke what was in the hearts of thousands of proud Memphians when he told his listeners about the long fight to save the Memphis Belle and how the ceremonies that day were an expression of appreciation to all the men who had fought in World War Two. ‘...the spirit in which they served their country lives on in Memphis’.

One of the many highlights of the weekend was when Harry Friedman read a letter from General Ira C. Eaker, who commanded the Eighth Air Force in England during the war. Now 91 and with impaired health. General Eaker was unable to attend but he sent a letter to Morgan and his crew. Morgan admitted later: ‘Tears came into my eyes when that letter from General Eaker was read. This was a very emotional moment of my life’.

 

Then, amidst all the hullaballo a murmur went through the crowd - then people began looking skywards and shouting, ‘Here they come!’ There was the rumble as if of distant thunder - it was the sound of 28 Wright-Cyclone engines, as the largest formation of B-17s seen in America since World War Two - and they were heading their way, swooping down low over the great river.

    It was a majestic moment. A prideful moment. For some who had waited so many years, who had suffered so many disappointments, this was the moment for their own tears of joy. For their own lump in the throat. Could there be more? Indeed there was. The bomb bay doors of one of the planes opened and down came a shower of flower petals. Thousands and thousands of them. The plane’s bombardier had done his work well, for the petals were falling over the heads of the thousands waiting below. No bombs now, only soft petals floating gently to earth as symbols of peace and the fulfilment of a dream. As for the Memphis Belle, she sat under the falling petals and the eyes of thousands of cheering citizens, now entitled to her own time of peace. It seemed the Memphis Belle had indeed come home at last.

    It was here that the aircraft remained until late 2002 when the MBMA were forced to move again. But it was not just ‘on display’ - the MBMA already had laid in place an ongoing program of scheduled maintenance, corrosion control, and continued acquisition of missing parts and equipment at the same time as running a whole range of fundraising and educational efforts. But they were fighting a losing battle against the elements and the very structure it was enclosed within. For a number of years the MBMA were searching around for a new home - they discovered it at the nearby US Navy airfield of Millington, to the north of the city.

Dispelling the Myths again - part twelve

 The Memphis Years - first part.

Now for what is possibly one of the biggest myths of them all  - that those in Memphis never cared for the aircraft.  Not only is this a huge insult for those who poured their lives, souls and a considerable amount of money into keeping the aircraft in existance, it is a myth that was promulgated by those who should have known better, but guess who was 'playing politics'?

In many respects, it is remarkable that the aircraft survived at all. After Mayor Chandler  'obtained’ 41-24485 for the city it seems that for many years they only cared for it when there was political capital to be made. The aircraft sat out at the Airport, then it seems it was ‘adopted’ by the ‘Memphis Belle Memorial Committee’ under the chairmanship of Roane Waring Jr, a Memphis lawyer with co-Chairmen Henry Loeb - who became Mayor of Memphis in 1960-63 and again 1968-71 - and Judson McKellar, the elder brother of Senator Kenneth Douglas McKellar.

    These three men, along with American Legion Memphis Post No. 1, organized the move to the Armory and finally a Memorial Dedication on August 20 1950. From the program, it looks like they had a significant amount of support locally and the Dedication - which started at 5.30pm - seems to have been quite a party!

The initial dedication ceremony

    Then things seem to have just languished for many years. Without doubt though a large number of people have each played an important part in ensuring that the aircraft survived - but one person stands head and shoulders above the rest - Frank Donofrio.

    In 1967 he was president of the Mid-South Metal Treating Co. “I used to drive down Central Avenue on my way to work and I would pass the Memphis Belle. Somehow she always intrigued me because I had seen the Belle film during the war. Then, one day in March of 1967, I picked up a copy of Newsweek and read a story under the headline, ‘50,000 Films for Sale.’ It seemed the government was selling off a lot of films, mostly training films, made during the war. I had always been interested in training films because I used them in my business. But not all of them were training films. A few of them were documentaries and the Newsweek story was saying that the best of these was a film called the Memphis Belle.” 

 

    Donofrio, his desire whetted by the daily sight of the Memphis Belle standing on Central, and now by the high praise of the film by Newsweek, wanted the film so badly that he made a special trip to the Government’s film depository in St. Louis to get what was believed to be the only surviving print. Bringing the film home and watching it once more made him a confirmed Memphis Belle fan. He was to devote a good portion of his life to ‘The Memphis Belle Project’.

    It started when John Means, a Commercial Appeal writer, heard about Donofrio’s trip to St. Louis and wrote a news article about it, linking it to police inspector Joe Gagliano, who had been a B-17 bombardier at Bassingbourn in the period immediately after the Memphis Belle had been sent home in 1943. Then the 91st Bomb Group Association announced that it had chosen Memphis for its 1967 convention and reunion in July. Colonel Robert K. Morgan would be in Memphis to attend.

    Frank Donofrio attended the meeting and became an associate member. Then Memphis radio personality Dottie Abbott got involved. She had been the first Station Manager on WHER back in 1955 when it was owned by Sam Phillips of Sun Records, Roy Scott, and Kemmons Wilson, the founder of Holiday Inn. The station had been promoted as an early experiment in all-women’s radio programming an was billed as ‘the nation’s first successful all-girl station.’   

     Dottie began pounding the drums for the Memphis Belle. The result - a new committee was formed. They all met in Dottie Abbott’s home. Members were Roane Waring, Jr., attorney and former Legion commander, Thomas Williams, Judge Willard Dixon, Menno Duerksen, Memphis Press-Scimitar, and Frank Donofrio, who was elected chairman.

    For the next few years, Donofrio admitted he was not quite able to provide the spark to get the thing going. In the meantime, the Memphis Belle had been painted and refurbished one more time and things did not seem to be that urgent. Then the Tennessee Army National Guard began to talk about moving the Armory to another location which created the need to move the Memphis Belle. Things started moving again.

    Donofrio was contacted by George T. Lewis, Jr., an attorney, and John Emerson, a Shelby County employee, both representing the American Legion, which was now trying to crank up a new Memphis Belle project. It was decided that if the new group was to raise funds as a non-profit organization it would have to incorporate. Lewis did the legal work. The organization that would eventually create a permanent home for the aircraft, the Memphis Belle Memorial Association, was a reality. The date was April 6, 1976. Donofrio was elected president. Emerson was named vice-president and Lewis, secretary. The first moneyraising project was to sell memberships. The drive had limited success, not producing enough to build the new home for the aircraft. In the spring of 1977, the National Guard served final eviction papers and the new Association was powerless to stop them. The aircraft was once again dismantled and was taken back to the Airport on April 28 under the care of the Tennessee Air National Guard (TANG). Things, it seems, were starting to go around in circles.

Margaret Polk remembers the move from the Armory plinth: ‘There was this little old guy who worked for Memphis Light, Gas and Water. He had wanted to start something and I was trying to help him. I remember the night before they moved the plane from the Armory, I sat in this little old boy’s pick-up truck, talking to this little old boy who was guarding the plane until about 10 or 11 o’clock’.

The interior before any attempt at restoriation - 1

    The Association on June 30 held another meeting, kicked Donofrio upstairs by making him permanent chairman, and elected Emerson president. The advertising agency of Cochran and Sandford gave the Association a blueprint for raising funds. ‘If we had followed their advice, I believe we could have gotten off the ground. As it was, we didn’t and we never had more than $5,000 in the bank at any time’ admitted Donofrio.

    More was taking place in the area of restoring the plane than in raising funds to build the plane  a permanent home. Now is the time to introduce one of the co-authors of this book - and one who has had a direct and long-lasting impact on the story - Doctor Harry Friedman.

Harry is a neuro-surgeon, but if anyone ever ran a time check on him, they would almost certainly find that his time was equally devoted to the Memphis Belle! ‘I must have been about five or six years old when I first saw the Memphis Belle movie at the old Suzore Theater on Jackson. We just lived a few doors down the street and I spent a lot of time in that old theater. When I was a kid, airplanes were my big passion. One day - it was around 1948 and I was about nine years old - I went out to see my brother Irving out at the Airport - he was in the Air National Guard there - to see him and the Memphis Belle was standing there. My brother let me crawl into her and prowl around. I was in heaven’.

The interior before any attempt at restoriation - 2

    Harry did not become officially involved in the Memphis Belle project until the Association was chartered - then he paid his dues and went to work although his contributions actually began long before that. ‘...I had been prowling around old aircraft salvage yards for years scrounging parts. I had a Norden bomb sight before I ever became connected with the Association. I’ve developed B-17 parts sources all over the U.S., some in California and others are in Arizona, Illinois, Florida and New York where I bought the bomb sight’.

 

The interior before any attempt at restoriation -3

    As the years went by Harry gradually evolved from one of the troops working on the Memphis Belle’s restoration to what might be called the restoration coordinator, collecting parts in an attempt to replace all the parts of the aircraft that had been screwed or pried loose and carried off by vandals during the years.

One day, one of Harry’s patients showed up at his office with a hydraulic pressure gauge and gave it to him. This gentleman had taken it off the aircraft many years ago as a child, and now wanted to return it so that it could be restored to its rightful place. Bob Morgan experienced the same thing: ‘One day I got a package in the mail. When I opened it, there was the pilot’s yoke for the Memphis Belle, along with a note. The writer confessed that one day he and his friends had pried some parts off the plane for souvenirs, but now that they were restoring the Belle, his conscience had hurt until he returned the yoke’.

    Sometimes, Harry discovered it paid to scrounge more parts than he needed. He then could use them to trade for things where the owner would not consider cash as an incentive. He has even worked three-way trades in which he traded a part to one person who had a part needed by a second person who has a part needed by the Memphis Belle! Aircraft restoration tends to get complicated like that! 

 My first encounter with the grand old lady - 1980

    Initially the aircraft was parked on the apron near the Air National Guard hangars, and men of the Guard spent hours of their spare time on the Belle project, including stripping the aircraft of the accumulated layers of paint and grime. The man who did more than anyone else was Master Sergeant Nute Paulk, a full-time Guardsman. The sergeant had been a crew chief for the A-26 flown in Korea by former Shelby County Sheriff Gene Barksdale, who flew combat missions in that war. Later, Paulk remained in the Guard. ‘Nute played a major part in all three moves of the aircraft that were made in Memphis,...’ recalls Harry’...the first move to the pedestal on Central Avenue in 1950, the return to the Airport in 1977 and the move to Mud Island in 1987’.

    Around this stage of the restoration work, the Memphis Belle was parked near the Memphis Area Vocational Technical School, near the Airport, students at the school worked on the plane for months on end under the direction of their instructor Henry Martin. Here the first serious attempts at corrosion control, sheet metal repair and other work was undertaken, including some engine work and the complete Restoration of the pilots and co-pilots instrument panel.

    In the early 1980’s there was a restaurant in Memphis named the ‘91st Bomb Group’, located on the back side of the airport grounds and part of a chain of speciality restaurants owned by Dave Tallichet. The Memphis Belle was moved alongside the restaurant in February 1983 as fund-raising attempt, at the same time a continuous regime of corrosion location and control was undertaken. The day they moved the aircraft was to be a ‘first’ for Margaret Polk, for finally she got to take a ride aboard the aircraft, even if it was being towed backwards while sitting in the co-pilot’s seat as they moved the aircraft from Memphis Vocational Technical School on Winchester to the restaurant site on Democrat.

    A major ‘push’ to provide a permanent home for the aircraft began in 1985 when Harry began a correspondence with Colonel Richard C. Uppstrom, director of the then U.S. Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. He became acquainted with Uppstrom during his years of research on the Memphis Belle and his search for parts. For the record, and for clarification, ‘The USAF Museum’ became ‘The National Museum of the United States Air Force’ on October 14 2004.

One of the archictects proposals for a museum building.

    Uppstrom was dismayed at the years of procrastination by the people of Memphis in providing a proper home for the aircraft. Since the city had really done little, if anything, he said, the plane belonged to the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson or elsewhere. Anything would be better than more years of rot and neglect. Uppstrom made these points in letters he wrote to Frank Donofrio and Harry in June of 1985. The second letter, written November 19, was more blunt: “I’m beginning to get that gnawing feeling that the citizens of Memphis have no interest in the Belle and, in the long run, the best thing we could do would be to bring her to Wright-Patterson for care at the main Museum.” 

    Barbara Burch, a Commercial Appeal writer, got wind of the Museum’s interest. She wrote a story, which appeared under the headline, “Memphis Belle Must Move in or Fly Away.” It said Memphians must take concerted action or the Belle would be gone. Harry Friedman: “That story did it. It got the attention of Mayor Dick Hackett, who called a meeting of Memphis’ top business men and told them that a way must be  found to keep the Belle in Memphis.” 

    Business leaders in the city proposed that the new home for the aircraft could be on Mud Island. This was a unique Mississippi River park which included a Mississippi River museum and a small scale replica of the river itself. The park was attracting national attention as something different in the way of spectator entertainment. It was thought that moving the aircraft to Mud Island could play its integral part in the overall revitalization of the downtown area. A short time later. Jimmy Ogle, director of Mud Island, met with Donofrio and Friedman to present their case.

    ‘I suppose the main difference in thinking between Emerson and me,’ said Donofrio, ‘...had been on the type of building we wanted, and the site. He was adamantly opposed to the Mud Island site and he wanted to raise two million dollars to build a permanent, enclosed building. All of which was good if you could do it. But being realistic, I felt that $500,000 was a more practical goal and if the city was willing to give us the Mud Island site, I was willing to settle for that.’ 

    In the meantime there was more action from Colonel Uppstrom. In a letter dated February 7, 1986, he had set a deadline. If the newly reorganized Memorial Association could not come up with the means to
provide a proper home for the Memphis Belle by April 15, he would consider such failure as evidence that Memphis did not have enough interest in the old plane to save her. He would take steps to recover the aircraft for the USAF Museum Program.

    Directors of the MBMA held another meeting with Memphis business leaders to ask for financial help and to solicit ideas from the business community on projects for raising money. Three of the men who spoke at that meeting were Ward Archer Jr., an advertising executive, Al Sackett, a retired Naval rear admiral, associated with the Commercial Appeal, and Robert Snowden, a real estate executive. Each offered suggestions - and were promptly asked to put them to work.

    Archer, assisted by Sackett, became the chairman of a committee working on local fund-raising projects. Snowden was put in charge of the building committee, which did the actual planning of the building for the plane. It was under Archer’s and Sackett’s direction that the Association suddenly found itself sponsoring a string of local events such as dances, beauty pageants, exhibitions and what have you. Each reaped dollars.

    Mayor Hackett persuaded the Memphis City Council to give $150,000 including the site on Mud Island. Other Memphis business organizations weighed in with smaller gifts. The Commercial Appeal, which had long battled on behalf of the Belle, gave $5,000. When it became clear that a vigorous new effort was in to provide a home for the Memphis Belle in Memphis, Uppstrom extended his deadline to July 31, 1986.

Dispelling the Myths again! Part Eleven

  I wonder what happened to...

Margaret Polk 

The decline in the relationship between the couple reached rock bottom in Denver. The date was the night of July 31/August 1 1943. Bob Morgan explains. ‘I’d made a point of calling Margaret from every stop on the tour. In Denver, I picked up the telephone and called her number in Memphis from the hotel suite, where there was already a crew cocktail party going on. As soon as she answered, she was more interested in the background noises. She could hear the girls, the chink of glasses and the girls giggling’. Margaret wanted to know what was going on, and Bob was forced to admit there was a party. According to Morgan, one of the girls there - noticing that he was on the telephone - tried to playfully wrestle the handset away from him, at the same time loudly demanding who he was speaking to. Margaret heard it and was not happy. Words were said, and Margaret told Bob Morgan it was over.

 

    Margaret tells the story of the break-up differently. It seems that there were women around from the moment they touched down at Washington DC. '..Bob was staying out at my house when they came here, and women would call him up. They surely would. I’d put him on the phone. I thought it was some mother or sister asking about some loved one, but half of the time it was women wanting to date him.

    I cancelled the engagement on his birthday, July 31. I called him right out in Denver at the Brown Palace Hotel. And some woman answered that phone and something went on that I didn’t particularly like and everything and that was it. But the War Department wouldn’t let me break the engagement’. 

    ‘Captain Tom’ and the War Department was outraged. They were in the middle of a very successful nationwide publicity tour with the centrepiece being the romance between pilot and a willowy girl from Memphis and suddenly they were told it was over. It was a time of war, when Americans hungered for romance and love stories. They needed the romance to take their minds off the conflict and the dying. OVER? It couldn’t be!

 

    The War Department Publicity machine went to work on Margaret, and she agreed to keep the love story alive. She would keep her mouth shut for the time being about the broken romance. Bob Morgan did his share also. He fought desperately to keep alive his romance with Margaret. He sent telegrams, wrote letters and made phone calls. But the story leaked out. The romance with Margaret refused to die. Bob tried to get it back on the rails. Once, on a trip through Memphis, he tried to contact her. There was a flurry of letters and telegrams:

October 17 1943. 10:00 PM

My Dearest Margaret,
I have never really used your first name to any degree, have I? I am not good at writing you anymore either.
Margaret I can’t tell you how much better I feel since I got my speech in. You see I have been carrying that around on my mind and in my heart for two months - it has been hell too. Today was the first chance I have had to tell you to your face. We always promised if anything came between us we would talk it over. I failed you there because I let that hero stuff get me down.

    I am Bob Morgan now, the guy who fell in love with you in Walla Walla and who has loved you ever since he went away in June and just got back. I was hoping your love which has led him through combat would be strong enough to take him in your arms and forgive his mistakes and take as your own forever... but darling you can’t see it that way, eh? Maybe my love was the strongest after all.

    I owe you everything, my life and all. I have no right to ask you to be big and forgive and forget and be Bob and Margaret Morgan as we planned for so long. I wish you could see death as I did and you’d know what I mean by throwing away happiness as we are doing.

    If you change your mind before I go to England in November I’ll be waiting... it is your turn now to swallow your pride .. if you do I’ll stay in the U.S. as we once planned.

    forever, yours, Bob

    P.S. We all make mistakes....... I have forgiven people .... can’t you?

Obviously they did meet, in Memphis, for Margaret wrote this letter sometime the next week... 

Dear Bob,

Oh! The weather is so perfect I just want to go out and play. Whiz! I bet you are out hunting now ... yep! I might well say the lazy way from a car. How about that exercise of the officers (God Bless em) are supposed to take? Come on -- try a few of those new fangled vitamin pills.

    Oh! They are playing ‘My Ideal’ on the radio -- they just finished ‘The Dreamer’ a couple of my stop, look, and listens.

    Bob, all I can say is what I said Sunday. We are the best of friends. If we can ever get that old feeling -- well time will tell. I have ceased to be surprised with what tomorrow brings. I feel sure everything happens for the best so why worry. Its just too pretty a day to think. Soon ole dreary winter will have the spot light on us. I love the snow but not the rest of the dreary days. Gosh! The weather has been a military secret for so long that I can’t resist talking about it now.

    Bob, a little food for thought -- I don’t mean to be treading on your sore spot -- if ever we see ‘eye to eye’ there will be publicity --- how about that?

    I received a letter from Jean Ketuz the other day -- (Glenn Adcox’s friends’ wife (Hawk to you). I hadn’t heard from her for a month or so. She said “t’other Hawk” was now walking alone and that Hawk and Glenn were still on the same merry go round. She joins occasionally. Gosh! They all are so nice!

    Bebe and I still haven’t tried our hand at golf yet. We will get set one of these days and swing. I hear its good for the figure.

    Joke-- why did the little moron wear two pairs of socks to play golf? Oh hush! You don’t know -- answer: He was afraid he might get a hole in one! Now see hyar Chief! If you can’t laugh you could at least chuckle. O.K. thats better.

    Remember Jeep? Well she and Tommy were through here the other day on furlough. We all let down our hair and had one for the good ole days --- scotch et al. Fiddle dee dee! Don’t deny it I can see your mouth watering now. How are the whiskey runs?

    I just can’t escape the call of my books. Jeep and Tommy stritcly interrupted my learning curricular. So I should give them a loving pat --- the books of course. Oh!! For the life of a co-ed. Don’t work too hard. If ever you can come this way it would be grand to see you for old friends’ sake. You did leave the airport in one piece I presume.

    The best of luck always, Margaret

    P.S. I’m from MO.

    Have you read the Nov. Woman’s Home Companion? Nope, its not meant as an insult. The article on P. 4 ‘Rendevouzs with Heroes’ might be interesting. They are Mac’s group -- perhaps you know some of them.

He poured his heart out in a letter on October 27, while training with the 395th Bomb Squadron at Pratt, Kansas:

‘My dearest Margaret

I hope that you will forgive me for typing this to you, but since it may be the last letter that I will ever have the honor of writing to you, I want a copy of it to put into my scrapbook for my future years if there are any. I must be frank ‘little one’ as we have always been that way except when the public took a tired young man away from you. I love you and never have ceased in the least. Yes, I was blinded by the actions I had to face because I wanted to come back to you. You know the only way I could come home was to be the pilot of a famous bomber. 1 wanted to come home for one good reason, you. We kept our love going, through hell and high water. God gave us life and happiness. I gave you all that. I came home. I am made a hero when all I want is you. I warned you in Memphis that this tour was not to my liking. The public damn near killed me and got me to the point where I wanted to tell all of them where to go. You had told me that at any cost I had a job to do even here in the States. I did it and a damned good job. I made an awful error by blowing up but I couldn’t help it, darling. I needed you and your pride kept you from coming to me. I need you now forever. I need you now more than at any time over Germany. You belong to me and God gave me the strength to come back to you. Why don’t you admit that our love was the love of the year and always will be. This is our last chance, darling, as I can’t take it any more. I can’t even fly a B-17 without looking up for your picture. I can’t even look at my dog tags without looking for your ribbons.You belong to me.

    I need you Margaret and I want you to become my wife. I have got to have you now or give up ever thinking of having you. It has got to be now or never. I cannot go on like this. I fought death for you. Sure I let you down, but after all, you needed who? I needed you then. I need you now and have you ever come to me when I really needed you. You know you haven’t. So darling take a good look at yourself and see if your pride was not stronger than your love. If it wasn’t you will say yes (and we will be married quietly). The Colonel says I can have 15 days if I can talk you into it. And he’ll say nothing to anyone. The first the public will know of it will be weeks later. You have to admit one thing darling Margaret. You either will or you wont.

    All I ask is for your decision and cut out this Missouri stuff. This is as important to me as your pride was to you. I have a stack of letters from people all over the country saying how sorry they were that you let me down. I took the pains to write to each one and tell them I made the mistake and let you down. But now I am wondering? After all who had been through the strain. Who had fought for their country? Who had loved and been true to their love for nine months? Something that even the married men in the 91st weren’t. I needed you then, I needed you in July and August. I need you now. And if you dont love me any more than to stay away because of pride, then maybe this world isn’t worth fighting for, or at least the things we and the 91st fought for. They gave their lives. I am giving up death when I have to live knowing that you let one letter and one phone call and your pride wipe out happiness.

    It is your decision sweet, be careful, dont beat the bush. It is either yes or no. If it is yes (God say yes) LIFE will never get their story if it is no. I might as well end the story and send it on, as they have offered me $800.00 for it.

    Good nite, all my love, Bob.

    P.S. I would deliver this in person but we only have big planes here. You must make the right move, Bob

The ‘big planes’ reference relates to his B-29 training. It seems also that there was the distinct possibility of Bob Morgan returning to the UK. Margaret’s reply was written in the manner and words of the time. It contains phrases that some in the early 21st century may find offensive, but does however show that the Memphis Belle publicity tour ‘machine’ had reached out and touched even the rural illiterate employees on her family farm!

Dear Bob,
Happy Halloween .. the goblins will get you if...

   Here I sit in the midst of downy soft cushions. Did I hear you ask why? As usual I have just returned from the farm ... the horse went one way and I went down and hit rock bottom. Won’t I ever learn? Ok, laugh its worth it.

    I received your letter yesterday. Some parts of it just beat the H out of me. So I must make the next move.... well here goes...

    I am asking you to come here so we can have a talk. There are a few rough spots. If the Colonel will give you 15 days after you quote ‘talk me into it’ unquote. Surely he would give you a few days to ‘talk me into it’.

    Perhaps one of the main difficulties is the fact that we have never been with each other except for a few hours. I do think that we should have another speaking session or a good facsimile.

    The negroes on the farm are so funny. One of them asked me how old I was. I swelled up and came out with 20. The negro said, ‘Well I declare Miss Margaret I thought you was 14’. Boy was that a pin prick. You yourself would get a kick out of the negroes. They have our pictures fastened all over their walls. Why! Are they ever proud! They don’t know we broke the engagement because there were no pictures in the paper there. I just kid along with them.

    Did you decide to give up going to England in November? If you are still going there is no sense in our breaking our necks. I don’t think you are going because I know how much you want to work with the big planes.

    I saw where Major T has been transferred to (military secret, so don’t get really inquisitive). If you see him give him my best. He is really nice!

    Bob, do you agree with that old axiom now? You really don’t realize the value of something until you lose it. If it was of any value in the first place it should be worth working for. The days of ‘Pennies from Heaven’ are past.

    You say you can’t go on like this. Bob, if we don’t marry I will still be on your mind. I am linked with the most important thing in your life. If we can’t talk things over and recover our old feelings, you will always wonder what it would have been to have been married to me.

    Oh! Do you want my opinion? OK, I will save it for future reference! Just as you say, Chief! I am sorry I can’t tell you any more jokes. I don’t get around much anymore. I can see you still have your sense of humor. ... What other okay? .. Cut out that Missouri stuff!!... I guess our future rest in the Col.
I think he will see things our way or he isn’t the man I think he is ...... Something to tuck in bed with you to night. Have you ever tried to reflect yourself in my place? What would you have done or would do now under the existing circumstances? I do hope I will see you soon ......

    Sweet dreams, Margaret

    P.S. People here are bursting with curiosity as to what we are doing. I thought the four part telegrams
showed that you had lost my address. But I see from your letter your memory hasn’t failed you.

    P.P.S. Thanks for the pictures. You look grand. By the way whom are you with? The “Belle” kinda does something to you, doesn’t she?

    On November 17, still at Pratt Air Base, Bob wrote what should have been his farewell to the girl he had loved so much.

    My dear Margaret
I am sorry I have not written to you sooner in answer to your fine letter, but I have been away for a week and just got back this Monday. I am sure you will understand this.
Yes, I guess I do understand how you felt when you got that letter from me while I was in Denver, but I will never feel that you could have loved me as you said and let us go our ways without doing anything about it. If I could feel that you ever truly loved me, I’d try to win it back. We have been apart now for a long time and the wound is nearly gone and I feel we would open it once again if we tried to start over again.

I hope we will always be friends and that any time I am in Memphis, I will give you a call. I hope you will do the same when you are near wherever I am. I hope I have as much luck this next trip [his next tour of duty] as I did last time. I guess I’m the only member of the 8th Air Force who is crazy enough to go back to combat, but I am fighting for something still.

    Good luck Margaret and may our paths cross again soon no matter where. My best to your whole family.

    As ever. B’

Then he was gone, back to the wars. Bob Morgan’s marriage to Dorothy Grace Johnson had ended the storybook romance of the Memphis Belle. Bob Morgan liked to tell reporters his version of the ending: I called Margaret at home and said ‘Look, with all this publicity about our love affair I think we ought to just call it quits’. 

As we have seen, it was certainly not like that. Even in 1987 when Menno Duerksen wrote ‘Home at Last’ he knew of the true story, and the continuing romance, but bowed under pressure from Bob Morgan to keep it quiet. 

    Margaret, of course, recalled it differently: 'We wrote each other letters. I think my mother saw to it that we didn’t see each other, like he might have come through and she’d tell him I was over at the farm. I was either at the farm or over at Hot Springs and then I was going to school.'

    Except there would be times, during the years that followed, when Margaret’s mother was not around to fend off Bob. There were times when the romance almost came back to life once more. They met again over the years and the old flame was fanned alive again. Margaret liked to remember it, that flaring of the old flame, as proof that their love had not been just another casual weekend affair. It proved, for her, that there was something durable and undying about it, after all. ‘I would have married him at this time if circumstances had permitted it, but circumstances had their way of interfering and it couldn’t happen’.

    After the war Margaret trained as an Air Stewardess for American Airlines for a while, flying out of Memphis to Washington DC, New York, Cleveland, El Paso and Texas. ‘I thought I was big stuff, ordering Martinis up in New York, at the Algonquin Hotel, sitting there where all those writers and things used to sit there in the lobby. Then I’d go to a play and fall asleep, and I would not know what was going on’.

    Her father, who had spent many years commuting between his farm in Arkansas in the week and his family in Memphis at the weekends, passed away in 1946, and left her an inheritance that would support her for the rest of her life. She met and later married Joe Copeland, a travelling tractor-parts salesman, but that did not last long. ‘My brother Oscar Jnr died of Parkinson’s Disease, my sister Elizabeth had one son, but he was killed in Vietnam. She herself died in 1951. 

    Margaret also had a battle of her own to be fought. Margaret had always enjoyed a drink. It had helped make things spark when she had been together with Bob Morgan. Later, even as early as her airline stewardess days, she found that her drinking had become a problem. She lost the stewardess job. ‘The management of American Airlines called me down a couple of times when I was taking a flight out. To explain the smell of drink, I told them I had been to a wedding. I had met this girl out in El Paso, Texas. That was one of my layovers. She asked me to spend the summer with her down at at ranch near Corpus Christi. I told American that I had to handle my fathers estate, which was a tale. When we came back, they wanted me to take a trip out. In the meantime I had gotten drunk out in Texas and called Bob up at his home. I thought he was coming up so I told them that I couldn’t take a trip out. In the meantime the airline called home over a five or six dollar expense check that was due me. Mother told them what a grand time I was having down in Corpus Christi and down in Beeville, Texas. And they thought I was on serious business! I’m glad that marijuana and cocaine were not around then or I probably would have gotten into them, too!’

Her private hell lasted nearly sixteen years and only ended in 1963 when she collapsed in a coma which lasted five days. ‘It was the day I was supposed to move out of my house on Lemaster. They found me in bed with my eyes rolled back. They took me to hospital- my brother Tom was coming down and the doctor told him ‘...there was no sense in coming down... either she comes out of it or she doesn’t, and we’ll let you know. So they built me up. They were going to commit me to a sanitarium and then they came and told me that I wasn’t taking care of my dogs, and that’s when I agreed to commit myself. So I went to a sanitarium in Arlington, Texas and stayed ninety days. There I didn’t have any sense. I was hiding my cookies and my candy. They would let me go to the store. I’d buy cookies and candy and I’d hide it like I’d hide my whiskey all through my closet and everything. I guess I overdo everything I do. The only treatment they gave me was becoming a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was so dumb! I’m sure I’d heard of it before I went down there. I thought it was an exclusive club! They head to tell me how to write a check down there - I had forgotten. I had brain and liver damage from all that alcohol. It took me two years to get back to something like normal - I was living in never-never land. I didn’t know how to worry about anything.'

She never minded if Memphis Belle fans knew about her long journey into hell and back with her battle with alcoholism - ‘It might help someone to stay away from what I went through’.

    Margaret was once asked if it been the bitterness and disappointment of her failed romance which helped catapult her into her battle with alcohol? ‘I believe that our romance was something that simply was not meant to be. You see, Bob and I never had a chance to be together for any length of time. My mother adored Bob. They were great friends. But mother said several times that, in her opinion, Bob would be a wonderful lover but a hell of a poor husband. ‘I believe if Bob and I had married, we would have torn each other to pieces. I believe I was more in love with love than with a man. I believe God had a hand in it all along. It had been in its best moments a thing of such splendored beauty. It had seemed to be a love affair made in heaven’.

 

    Margaret spent nearly six years working with Alcoholics Anonymous, helping other victims struggle out of their own hells. But there came a time to give it up. ‘I wasn’t thinking like an alcoholic anymore. This was something you need if you work with these people’. Not that she had a lot of friends. Some might say she almost led a monastic life in her modest home in midtown Memphis.The spectre of alcohol never left her, she used to say. Alcohol claimed many of her family as victims, including her father, her brother, her sister and her sister’s husband. It claimed her husband. Her marriage lasted five years. ‘It was never really a marriage. I was in the midst of the drinking problem and he had the problem too. It couldn’t have worked’. 

 

    When her marriage ended, she legally reverted back to her maiden name. Locals called her ‘Polky’ as a term of casual endearment from the best of her old-time friends from school days. Bob Morgan called her ‘Polky’ when their romance was young and blooming. It survived, shorn of its romantic shading but with a special meaning for those who loved her in a different way.

    She worked for years with the Humane Society, but always on the edge of things because she could not abide close relationships with the real action. ‘I can’t go in where the cages are looking at them and knowing’ she used to say. Birds fed freely in her back yard. They knew where lived a generous heart. Margaret spent some of her time working with the Woman’s Exchange, a place where good clothing was made available at bargain prices. ‘I sell and wait on tables in their tea room’ 

    She also made herself available whenever the Memphis Belle was in need of fund-raising efforts. She always lent her presence and her support as the ‘real’ Memphis belle, travelling all over the country with Frank Donofrio of the Memphis Belle Memorial Association. In later years her health started to suffer and Doctors told her to slow down, telling her she was in need of a heart valve replacement and that she should cut down on her swimming in her own backyard pool, a pleasure she always enjoyed.

    A tale was told where a visitor who had been visiting Margaret said as he left ‘Well, I’ll go now and leave you in peace’. Her reply was telling and simple. ‘I am at peace, I’m always at peace’. 

    In 1988 she it was discovered she had a brain tumour - for which she underwent surgery. It was then discovered she also had lung cancer. She refused chemotherapy, preferring instead to take massive amounts of vitamins.

Margaret passed away in her Memphis home at 3.18am on April 15 1990. She was 67. MBMA member Bill Stoots arranged for red and blue ribbons to be hung on the nose of the aircraft out at Mud Island with gold lettering that read ‘In Memory of Margaret’. 

When her last will and testament was published, under Item Three, there was the biggest bombshell of all: ‘I direct that any amounts due to me at the time of my death under a certain promissory note in the principal amount of FIVE THOUSAND ($5,000) DOLLARS from ROBERT K MORGAN be considered as paid in full and direct that said note be cancelled.

Dispelling the Myths again! Part Ten

 I wonder what happened to...

Bob Morgan

The triumphant tour eventually turned sour because, as Morgan put it, ‘It was too much of a good thing. There was too much wine, women and song. And not necessarily in that order!

    During the Bond Tour, Bob Morgan received an invitation to the Boeing Assembly Plant in Wichita. It was there he found out the USAAF had a new aircraft - a bomber bigger, more powerful and capable of flying much higher and faster than the Memphis Belle. This was the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. They were slated for duty in the Pacific. A B-29 named Enola Gay would make history by carrying the first atomic bomb to be dropped in the war on Hiroshima. ‘They let me climb into one of those planes and sit in the pilot’s seat’ said Morgan. ‘That did it. Here I was, surrounded by all that luxury in a pressurized cabin. That huge body. I just had to fly it’.

    Morgan volunteered for a second tour of duty in the Pacific and began pulling strings to get into the seat of one of those B-29s. The only member of the Memphis Belle’s crew who would go with him was Vince Evans, the bombardier. According to the Morgan/Powers book, it seems that Vince Evans had got for himself a new Hollywood bride called Jean Ames. The only problem was, was that Vince had not bothered to get himself divorced from his previous wife, Dinny whom he had married in Walla Walla before leaving for England. ‘J.P’ Quinlan also volunteered, thinking he would be flying with Morgan, but somehow how things got SNAFU’d, and he ended up with another on another B-29. Vince Evans decided to head for the Pacific until things cooled down, and people stopped throwing the word ‘bigamist’ around.

    Major Robert Morgan would also make another bit of history when he became the pilot to lead the first B-29 bombing attack on Tokyo. His B-29 would be called Dauntless Dotty in honour of another girl, this one called Dorothy Johnson. Bob Morgan turned her into wife #4.

        

Bob Morgan’s B-29 Dauntless Dotty waits another payload of 500lb bombs.

 After the war, Morgan left the Armed Forces on September 9 1945, with some two thousand and thirty-five flying hours under his belt and returned to his native Asheville. He did, however remain in the Air Force Reserve, gaining the rank of Colonel.

     For a time, along with his elder brother David, he operated the Morgan Manufacturing furniture factories that had belonged to his father. Bob Morgan stayed in contact with Vince Evans, who was now making his mark in Hollywood. It was though Vince’s contacts that Bob Morgan is supposed to have oh-so-nearly gone to work for entrepreneur film-maker, pioneer aviator and famed billionaire Howard Hughes, for Vince offered to get Bob a job as a commercial pilot working for Hughes’ Trans World Airlines - the famed TWA. But it was not to be. For a time Bob Morgan was an automobile dealer, selling the Volkswagen Beetles so beloved by a generation of Americans. No matter that they had been made by his one-time enemies in Germany! In the beloved hills of his native state, Bob Morgan and Dorothy would rear their four children Sandra Lea, Robert Jnr, Harry and Peggy.

 

    Dorothy was a home-maker and happy stay-at-home. Bob Morgan had ‘itchy feet’, travelling around the US for Morgan Manufacturing. He talked the company into buying an aircraft - an Army-surplus BT-15, which he flew along with a number of other machines. In December 1956 he had a close call while the ‘company’ aircraft was in the hangar undergoing maintenance. ‘I probably came closer to getting killed in a private plane than I ever did flying combat in Europe. I was flying a twin Cessna and we were going duck hunting on the East Coast. The weather was just horrible. It was in December. We ran into ice, sleet, everything. I had two friends in the back seat and another friend of mine was in the co-pilot’s seat. We were loaded. We took off and climbed to 6,000 feet. I thought we would break through it but we didn’t. The ice was building up on the wings and then the carburettors began icing up. I pulled all the carburettor heat we had, but it didn’t help. Both engines quit. I knew we had to come down. We had been over the mountains, and I didn’t know where we were. Coming down, we finally broke out of the clouds at 500 feet with both engines dead. It had to be some kind of miracle. Right under me was a grass landing strip. I couldn’t have flown any further because of the dead engines. It was Hendersonville, North Carolina. I made a dead stick landing with both engines dead. Somebody was really looking out for me that day’. 

    Throughout the 1950s he and Dorothy had their ups and downs, as did many other couples. They would break up, then make up, only to separate again. Business trips took Bob down to Memphis to visit a plant affiliated to the Morgan Manufacturing Company. While there, Bob called Margaret. And visited. ‘...for a brief sad time, our romance was rekindled again. We saw each other a few times. Arranged meetings in various places. Wrote letters, loved, argued. It was soon over’.

 

Bob Morgan regularly passed through Memphis, often paying visits to both his Memphis Belles. This is
thought to be the 1967 reunion.

    Eventually, with the kids grown up, he and Dorothy came to a parting of ways. They were divorced on May 24 1979. Bob had already met and romanced another - Asheville realtor broker and widow with four children, Elizabeth Thrash. He was married to wife #5 in June 1979. He took Elizabeth to England three times, the first as a belated honeymoon that took in the signing of a batch of prints produced from a painting of the Memphis Belle by aviation artist Robert Taylor.

    The second was in 1989 to watch the filming and participate in the publicity for Catherine Wyler and David Puttnam’s film. Eight surviving crewmembers and their wives flew over and a good time was had by all - however, despite the crewmembers offering suggestions regarding authentic dialogue and detail, film director Michael Caton-Jones declined their assistance. The result, as Bob Morgan said in masterly understatement was something that was ‘...historically innacurate’. Morgan liked to quote one reviewer: ‘The clichés dropped like bombs!’ Their third trip to London was to attend the film premiere. Sadly, Elizabeth contracted lung cancer, and passed away in January 1991.

 Some of the Memphis Belle’s crew and their partners in 1989. Right to left: Jim Verinis, Bob Hanson, Bill Winchell, Joe Giambrone, Bob Morgan, Chuck Leighton and Eugene Atkins. They are seen in front of the original Control Tower, at the time a Museum.

    On the aviation lecture circuit Bob Morgan - now 72 - met Linda Dickerson, a lady who had been doing Public Relations work for David Tallichet, the owner of the B-17 that had stood in for the Memphis Belle in the movie. Dickerson was also acting as a freelance publicity agent for members of the crew. They met in April 1991 at the Sun’ n Fun Fly In at Lakeland Florida. Bob romanced and won her, then 47 year old Linda became wife #6 at a ceremony performed under the nose of the Memphis Belle at Mud Island on August 29 1992. The bride was given away by Brigadier General Paul W. Tibbets Jnr, the man who piloted the B-29 Enola Gay over Hiroshima with Jim Verninis acting as best man.

    Not everyone was happy that the ceremony was about to take place. As Joy G Wilson of Memphis said at the time; ‘I feel strongly that this coming wedding to be held under the wing of the famed bomber is an affront to the memory of Margaret Polk. - a cheap ploy for publicity for Col. Morgan and in extremely poor taste. I do not agree that ‘Margaret would appreciate the idea’. Having known Margaret and having said this, I feel much better!’

Bob Morgan and wife #6 in front of the Memphis Belle at Mud Island on August 29th 1992.

Bob Morgan and his wife continued on the lecture circuit, often attending twenty or thirty a year. They came over to England in 1993, and again in 1997 to attend the opening of the American Air Museum at Duxford. That was not the only event. They visited Bassingbourn, lectured in the local area and visited Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother at Sandringham.

Bob Morgan’s ‘Return to Bassingbourn’ were highly orchestrated media events. Morgan and his wife with Lt. Colonel Jerome Church RRF, OBE, Commanding Officer of Bassingbourn Barracks as the old airfield had become. The media and enthusiasts responded well to all the hype and were out in force to see and meet the star of the show!

 Bob Morgan reflects on memories of fallen comrades in the Chapel of Remembrance at the American Military Cemetery at Madingley near Cambridge.
Here is a good as place as any to clear up another point - the crew never wore jackets with the Petty Girl artwork and name on the back - that was something dreamed up for Catherine Wyler’s 1990 movie!

In April 1999 he was invited to fly a Boeing B-52 at Barksdale Air Force Base, Shreveport, LA and in October 1999, Morgan was invited to fly a B-1B Bomber at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia. Robins subsequently named one of its B-1’s ‘Memphis Belle’ and painted the new noseart on in February, 2000.

    On April 22 2004 Bob Morgan attended the airshow at Asheville Regional Airport. Whilst there, he fell and was rushed to the Mission Memorial Hospital where he was diagnosed to have suffered a fractured neck. His condition deteriorated and was eventually taken off life support systems. He passed away on May 15. Bob Morgan’s ashes are buried in the Western North Carolina Veterans Cemetery, Black Mountain, about 18 miles east of his hometown of Asheville where, following the ashes internment, a B-52, B-17 and a P-51 did flypasts in tribute.

Dispelling the Myths again Part Nine

A certain small little booklet... How can something so small, and so Restricted be so wrong?

After the Memphis Belle and crew returned to the USA, and part-way through the ‘grand tour’ the Training Aids Division published a small, 36 page booklet. It contained a Foreword by General ‘Hap’ Arnold and contained - in the General’s own words ‘...factual accounts of aerial warfare over Germany and the occupied countries’. 

    Despite the fact that on the front cover was printed the word ‘Restricted’, the booklet was intended to reach as wide an audience as possible; as ‘Hap’ Arnold said ‘... I consider it important that the messages of these men be given maximum circulation’. 

    In the light of what the booklet contains when analysed, one wonders if it was intended for purely military use, or much of it was meant as propaganda to reach the wider general public!

    Luckily, we were in a position to be able to learn of the full background to the booklet from the person who authored it, for Ben J Grant of South Carolina, corresponded with Harry Friedman before he passed away. “In 1943 the Army Air Forces adopted a policy of bringing bomber crews home from Europe after they had flown 25 combat missions, I guess the idea was that 25 times over the hell of Hitler's Europe constituted enough deadly hazard for any man.

    The first bomber and crew to be brought back under that policy were the B-17 Memphis Belle and its 10 crew members. They were received as heroes. At the request of the U.S. Treasury, General H.H. Arnold, Commanding General of the Army Air Forces, made the Memphis Belle and its crew available to help promote the selling drive for war bonds. The bond mission was sandwiched into the Memphis Belle’s tour of AAF training establishments, where they met with student pilots, bombardiers, navigators and gunners to offer the benefit of the crew’s knowledge and experience to others yet to go into combat. A great deal of importance was being attached just then to Savings Bonds, because they represented a non-inflationary way of financing part of the cost of the war. So in their travels about the country, they participated - effectively, I'm sure - in Savings Bond rallies.

    General Arnold ordered the AAF Training Aids Division in New York to interview each member of the crew and get their stories and words of advice for young AAF personnel yet to go into combat. At the time I was a captain in the Training Aids Division, assigned to write training literature. I was tapped to do the interviewing and writing on the Memphis Belle assignment. I guess the principal reason for selecting me was that I had been a Washington correspondent for years, working for the Associated Press and experienced in doing fast interviewing and writing.

    Whatever the reason, I first contacted the crew in Washington, where they met with a lot of army brass. I sat in on the meeting and listened to a kind of rap session, mainly the crew’s answers to questions put to them about their experiences, their triumphs, their mistakes, their words of advice to other crews, and so on. I hoped this session would provide the wherewithal for my booklet, but it did not. The conversation was too disorganized, too repetitive, too diffuse to give me what I needed. Three or four of the crew did most of the talking while the others sat silent. This did not bring out what I needed for the booklet, so I asked permission to follow the Memphis Belle - I had to have each man’s story and observations in detail and in his own words. 

    From Washington the Memphis Belle and crew flew to Nashville, where they would appear at a bond rally. (as we know, the actual route was Washington - Memphis - Nashville) I followed them there, got a
room in the same hotel, and in about a day and a half interviewed each of the 10 crew members. I had gotten to know them by that time, and we had very satisfactory conversations. We met one on one in my hotel room, with nobody present except each individual crew number and myself. I took notes as the fellows talked. Each cooperated fully. 

    I then flew to Washington, knowing that I would have to get the final manuscript reviewed at the Pentagon. I borrowed a desk and typewriter at the Pentagon, and in part of a day and evening I wrote the booklet, including not only the first-person accounts of each crew member but also the title pages, the foreword to be signed by General Arnold, and the factual history of the Memphis Belle which preceded the individual accounts. You have noticed no doubt that I also wrote brief personality pieces on each crew member to precede their own stories.

    All hands understood this was a rush job, so everybody concerned at the Pentagon cooperated by reading the manuscript and approving it immediately. Having completed the "coordinating" process at the Pentagon, I took the manuscript in my brief case and flew to Dayton, Ohio, where the Training Aids Division's liaison office had been alerted that I was on the way with a rush printing job. 

    In the meantime, the art section of the Training Aids Division in New York had done a cover layout and drawing of a B-17, and the Pentagon supplied a photograph of the crew for the centerfold. In Dayton, I was placed in the hands of the McCall Printing Company, one of the largest in the country. The Materiel Command had a continuing arrangement with McCall's for the Command's printing needs. The McCall people got busy at once and started setting type. The next day I was able to fly back to New York with sample copies of the booklet in my briefcase to deliver to my commanding officer. The whole process - the conference in Washington, the flight back to New York, the flight to Nashville, the flight to Washington to write the interviews and other elements of the booklet, the coordinating, the flight to Dayton, the printing and the flight back to New Yor - all took just one week. That was because all hands cooperated so well, including those young fellows in the crew of the Memphis Belle, I guess the booklet received pretty wide distribution. I don't recall now how many copies we ordered. But General Arnold wanted it available wherever young men were being readied for combat duty, especially in the European theater.” 

    So there you have it - the booklet was written by a lifetime, non-aviation journalist in a hurry. Yes, without doubt Ben Grant did individually interview each crew member in turn, but clearly he did it without any ability to cross-check and corroborate what he was being told by individuals and, as he himself makes clear, he was working under a great deal of pressure. It is almost certain that the only ‘official’ document he was able to refer to was Bob Morgan’s own Flight-Log Book which explains why the ‘mission list’ in the booklet so closely follows the 25 missions Bob Morgan flew on. Ben Grant took what he was given and, on getting back to the Pentagon, wrote up the entire booklet - including the responsibility for completely writing General Arnold’s Foreword - in less than a day.

    Bob Morgan claimed for many years that they were always the first to 25. ‘There never was any doubt in my mind, even for a minute, as to whether the Memphis Belle was the first to complete 25 missions. That is what General Arnold told us and what General Eaker told us. We had no reason to doubt it. It is in the official record’.

    So, 25 Missions’ - is it a historical document? Many people still regard this little booklet as an historically accurate document. We have already seen what went in to it’s compilation and production - but just how accurate is it?  

        Let us compare what Ben Grant hurriedly wrote back in 1943 with what we now know of the history of men and machine - starting with the four-page introduction, which appears under the line ‘The Memphis Belle...’ 

    In September, 1942, a new Flying Fortress was delivered at Bangor, Maine, to a crew of ten eager American lads headed by Robert K. Morgan, a lanky 24-year-old AAF pilot from Asheville, N. C.

    Proudly, the boys climbed aboard, flew their ship to Memphis, Tenn., christened her ‘Memphis Belle’ in honor of Morgan's fiancee, Miss Margaret Polk of Memphis, and then headed across the Atlantic to join the U. S. Eighth Air Force in England.

    Morgan had told them it was rough where they were going. There would be no room in the Memphis Belle for fellows who couldn't take it. The boys said they were ready. They took it. Between November 7 and May 17, they flew the Memphis Belle over Hitler's Europe twenty-five times. Bombardier Vincent B. Evans dropped more than 60 tons of bombs on targets in Germany, France and Belgium. They blasted the Focke-Wulf plant at Bremen, locks at St. Nazaire and Brest, docks and shipbuilding installations at Wilhelmshaven, railway yards at Rouen, submarine pens and power houses at Lorient, and airplane works at Antwerp. They shot down eight enemy fighters, probably got five others, and damaged at least a dozen.

    The Memphis Belle flew through all the flak that Hitler could send up to them. She slugged it out with Goering's Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs. She was riddled by machine gun and cannon fire. Once she returned to base with most of her tail shot away. German guns destroyed a wing and five engines. Her fuselage was shot to pieces. But the Memphis Belle kept going back.

    The longest period she was out of commission at any one time was five days, when transportation difficulties delayed a wing change. When the tail was destroyed the Air Service Command had her ready to go again in two days. 

     Only one member of the crew received an injury. And that. says Staff Sergeant John P. Quinlan, the victim, ‘was just a pin scratch on the leg’.The Memphis Belle crew has been decorated 51 times. Each of the 10 has received the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal and three Oak Leaf Clusters. The 51st award was Sergeant Quinlan's Purple Heart.

The ship's 25 missions follow:
November 7     Brest. France
November 9     St. Nazaire, France
November 17     St. Nazaire, France
December 6     Lille. France
December 20     Rommily-Sur-Seine. France
January 3     St. Nazaire, France
January 13     Lille, France
January 23     Lorient, France
February 4     Emden, Germany
February 14     Hamm, Germany
February 16     St. Nazaire, France
February 26     Wilhelmshaven, Germany
February 27     Brest, France
March 6     Lorient, France
March 12     Rouen, France
March 13     Abbeville, France
March 22     Wilhelmshaven, Germany
March 28     Rouen, France
April 5     Antwerp, Belgium
April 16     Lorient, France
April 17     Bremen, Germany
May 1     St. Nazaire, France
May 4     Antwerp, Belgium
May 15     Wilhelmshaven
May 17     Lorient, France

The flight time on these missions ranged from three hours and 50 minutes on December 6 to nine hours
and 30 minutes on May 1. The total sortie time for the 25 missions was 148 hours and 50 minutes. Approximately 20,000 combat miles were flown.

    Today, the battle-scarred Memphis Belle is back home with her remarkable crew, the same crew to a
man that was organized 10 months ago in Maine. The Belle is the first bomber to be retired from active
service and flown back from the Eighth Air Force.

    Still flying the Memphis Belle, the crew is touring the United States to tell their story to the boys in
training establishments. Student bomber pilots, navigators, bombardiers and gunners are learning from the members of this crew the things they picked up the hard way.

    The succeeding pages of this booklet tell the stories, in their own words, of the boys of the Memphis
Belle. Here is what they saw, learned and did in the world's toughest theater of aerial combat. There are
important lessons in these stories. Let us learn and apply them.

Just how factual is it? 

General Arnold’s Foreword itself contains one innacurracy. The first paragraph says ‘...a distinguished crew which remained intact since its formation 10 months ago’ - it didn’t, we have already seen the myriad of crew changes. However, General Arnold did make this exact-same statement when the crew arrived at Washington DC on June 16, so the blame for that lies with either the General or his speech-writers - it cannot be placed on the shoulders of Ben Grant! Morgan always emphatically insisted that neither he, or any member of the crew he brought back from England did anything to promote that claim. ‘To my knowledge we were never asked about it and if we were, we ignored it’. 

    As for the Memphis Belle introduction, let us look at it paragraph by paragraph.

    As far as we can tell, paragraphs one and three are accurate - but paragraph two? 'Proudly, the boys climbed aboard, flew their ship to Memphis, Tenn., christened her ‘Memphis Belle’ in honor of Morgan's fiancee. Miss Margaret Polk of Memphis, and then headed across the Atlantic to join the U. S. Eighth Air Force in England. This is pure fantasy as we have already seen!

    Paragraph four; ‘...Between November 7 and May 17, they flew the Memphis Belle over Hitler's Europe twenty-five times’. Not correct. Between those dates they may have gone into combat 25 times, but certainly not solely aboard the Memphis Belle. The Memphis Belle itself did not complete its 25th mission until May 19. ‘...They shot down eight enemy fighters, probably got five others, and damaged at least a dozen. Eight swastikas were painted on the side of the aircraft, indicating the total number of enemy aircraft shot down, claimed and credited to the gunners aboard the aircraft. However, two official records indicate that the total number is different. The list showing the number of aircraft shot down by the 324th Bomb Squadron show just four for the Memphis Belle with two probables and one damaged. However, a news dispatch sent from Bassingbourn in June 1943 speaks of six. So what was the total?

    A clue to the discrepancy can be found in the diary of the 91st BG. It seems that the 8th Air Force Command became aware that the number of shoot-downs claimed and being recorded as confirmed, was too high. The figures were then revised downward, reducing the number of enemy aircraft claimed to be destroyed. This then left the question of what to do with the swastikas already painted on the Group's aircraft. Although no official papers have been discovered to prove this, it can well be imagined that, if only to protect AAF personnel morale, Commanders decided to allow the claim markings already painted on to remain. But as Colonel Morgan and other crew members always stated, whenever planes returned from a combat mission with claims for enemy aircraft shot down, each claim was carefully examined by Intelligence Officers. No crews were allowed to add a swastika until given official permission that a claim had been approved. As Morgan always said: ‘There is no way you can take that record away from the men’. 

    It seems that the booklet’s ‘claim’ of eight enemy aircraft shot down only came to fruition after the swastikas were painted under the bomb chart when the missions were complete and the Memphis Belle was going home, as has been seen in elsewhere. Remember, the moment that the Memphis Belle was prepared for the trip back to the USA, it was in the hands of the War Department’s publicity machine and, given the growing losses of the Eighth Air Force at the time, they needed as good a picture as possible to be painted to the public. So, is the claim for ‘destroyed eight enemy fighters’ spurious, or is it possible to make sense as to how that figure was derived?

    Are there any other clues? Going back to what Morgan and the crew said about ‘No crews were allowed to add a swastika until given official permission that a claim had been approved’ Perhaps another study of the aircraft is in order. There were, after all, other swastikas on the aircraft. The tail gunner’s position had two, one for each of Quinlan’s claims. There was one under one of the nose windows, almost certainly for Vince Evans' claim, and two more under one of the waist windows The table below shows the results of a complete trawl through the 324th BS records for enemy aircraft claims. When one looks at all possible combinations - claims from gunners aboard the Memphis Belle, claims from gunners forming part of Bob Morgan’s crew when he was flying aircraft other than the Memphis Belle and claims from gunners forming part of the crew of the aircraft when it was on the war-bond tour, it is possible to come up with a much ‘better-looking’ set of figures for enemy aircraft destroyed; seven destroyed, three probably destroyed and one damaged. It is possible that one of the ‘probably destroyed’ was later revised upon further intelligence into a ‘destroyed’ - this would not show up in the daily 324th BS list.

 

    Given that Ben Grant interviewed each crewman ‘individually, one on one’ you can almost hear him asking the question ‘And how many enemy aircraft did you shoot down?’ The reply would follow ‘One’, ‘Two’... and they would be telling the truth, for it is highly unlikely that the original question was ‘And how many enemy aircraft did you shoot down while you was aboard the Memphis Belle! After all, it is highly unlikely that Ben Grant even knew they flew and fought on other aircraft - remember Cas Nastal and his order to keep quiet?

    Thus it can be seen that whichever way it is viewed, the eight swastikas painted in the aircraft do not represent eight enemy aircraft destroyed BY the aircraft.

    Paragraph seven says... ‘Only one member of the crew received an injury’. This refers to a slight upper leg wound to tail gunner John P Quinlan, on March 28 1943 during a raid on the railway centre at Rouen. There were three other wounds, all minor, that never got reported, so therefore this is ‘officially’ correct.

    Paragraph eight.. ‘The ship's 25 missions follow...’ That statement and the following missions list is totally incorrect when viewed in the context of them referring to the Memphis Belle. What that list is, is Morgan’s 25 missions, during which he flew three other machines, 41-24515 Jersey Bounce, 41-24480 Bad Penny and 41-24527 Great Speckled Bird as well as the Memphis Belle. Again, this becomes quite understandable given that Ben Grant was talking to Bob Morgan in a hotel room in Nashville.

    Paragraph ten, first sentence: ‘Today, the battle-scarred Memphis Belle is back home with her remarkable crew, the same crew to a man that was organized 10 months ago in Maine’. A continuation - or maybe the origination - of what also appears in ‘Hap’ Arnold’s ‘letter’. Completely ncorrect.

    Paragraph ten, second sentence: ‘...The Belle is the first bomber to be retired from active service and flown back from the Eighth Air Force’. This is only at best partially correct. True the Memphis Belle was sent back from the 8th, but it was not ‘retired from active service’ for it went on to serve - after a complete overhaul - with aircrew training until 1945. The Memphis Belle was also certainly not THE first to be sent back, which then leads on to the fact that the Memphis Belle’s crew were also not the first to return! Those two honors go to a former 92nd BG B-17E 41-9112, which left for the USA via North Africa and the Southern Ferry Route on February 14 1943, supposedly crewed by Lt William J Crumm and his crew who had flown ten missions with the 91st BG. Their normal aircraft had been 324th BS 41-24490 Jack the Ripper. Almost certainly Morgan and some of the crew would have known about Crumm’s return - being from the same Squadron - but Ben Grant would not.

This aircraft - known as the ‘Reed Project B-17’ about when the engineering section of the Bovingdon Combat Crew Replacement Center was used to investigate technical and operational problems with the weaknesses in B-17 crew organisation and armament, that became apparent after the first few missions. These were of immediate concern and Major Robert J. Reed, the Engineering Officer, conducted a special study with a view to making recommendations on how best these could be overcome. 41-9112 was set aside for use in planning and effecting trial modifications.

 

 

    By late January 1943 Reed was able to submit a detailed report. The problems were defined as: lack of sufficient firepower forward, insufficient organisation of the combat crew, tail heavy balance condition, difficulties with the ball turret and inadequate oxygen supply for turrets. Solutions were proposed and some modifications had been carried out. Eighth Bomber Command was impressed with Reed's work but as many of the changes proposed involved major specialist engineering that could not readily be undertaken by the Eighth Air Force in England at that time, so the aircraft was sent back to the United States to have this work completed. Major Reed was to oversee the project and while in the US make known the shortcomings of current production B-17s to Materiel Command and the manufacturers. 41-9112 was flown to Wright Field Ohio, where modifications were undertaken, including the fitment of hydraulic power turrets in the nose and tail. Amongst the myriad of changes was the creation of a separate bombardier’s compartment in a lower fuselage blister. The work was not completed until September and early in October the Reed project bomber, now nicknamed Dreamboat, was flown back across the Atlantic. The purpose was to elicit opinion from Eighth Air Force engineering staff and combat group commanders, for while the USAAF viewed Reed's aircraft favourably, they felt that incorporation of such extensive revisions to production line B-17s would cause unacceptable delays.

    The remaining paragraphs of the Introduction are factually correct. Then Ben Grant proceeds on to the individual interviews themselves, complete with biographic details. Because they are all first-hand accounts, and personal opinions, it is impossible for us as historians to query any point made - we were simply not there, and there are no movies,videotape or documentation to prove or disprove what was said. All we can say, is that the events described did happen, on the dates stated.