Many, many people over the years have blamed those responsible for the care of the Memphis Belle for the damage done to the aircraft while it was in the city - WRONG! Most of the damage was done by three distinct groups: the Air Force, who stripped the aircraft of usable parts, so-called 'enthusiasts' (in truth, read vandals and thieves) who collected souvenirs in the worse possible ways by simply ripping whatever they could out, and the local politicians who had no real idea what to do with the aircraft once they had ownership of it. As we shall see in this post, a valiant few tried to preserve the aircraft, but it was not until the mid-1970s that work really started.
Such was the fame of the aircraft that items were stolen from the aircraft even while it was in Army Air Corps service.
From the previous blog, it is clear that Mayor Chandler was not only aware that some of the aircraft’s log books had been stolen during its time in Florida, but he was also unsuccessful in their recovery. To this day, there are still an undetermined number of log-books ‘missing’ that account for over four hundred and fifty flying hours. This covered two periods from September 4th 1944, when the aircraft had flown 1519 hours 45 minutes. The documentation picks up again on November 20th with airframe hours of 1749, so during that time, the aircraft had flown some 229 hours 15 minutes. More log books go missing on November 26th at an airframe hour of 1792:55. The next log in existence starts on January 21st 1945, at airframe hour 2017:05 - a further ‘missing’ 224 hours.
Mayor Chandler also wrote to Bob Morgan: This morning at 11.30 am the ship took off and came directly to Memphis without stopping, arriving here at 2.45 pm. A large crowd was at the airport to greet her and there was great rejoicing. She looks every inch the great lady she was when you and your magnificent crew flew her so successfully on those missions, and we hope that it will not be long before you feel the urge to fly to Memphis and give her your own affectionate greetings’.
The Memphis Belle parked outside the Administrative Building after arrival at Memphis Airport in July 1946.
It is clear with the benefit of hindsight - which is always 20/20 vision - that once the city got their hands on the Memphis Belle, they really had no idea what they were going to do with it and, one suspects what is more, that the majority of the city had no genuine interest in it. The ‘saving’ of the aircraft can be credited to Mayor Walter Chandler for whatever his reasons, be they political or patriotic, we are just not sure. It can equally be said that the entire ‘preserving for future generations' was also his idea and one the success of which was reliant of him staying in office to drive it through.
It was also the early days of aircraft preservation - especially in the USA. Remember, the Wright Brothers Wright Flyer spent from 1925 until 1948 in London due to disputes!
Shortly after the triumphant return to Memphis, the city elected a new mayor, Sylvanus Polk. The new Mayor did not consider the priorities for the Memphis Belle to be as high as they might have been if Chandler had remained in office. The new Mayor spoke about the shortage in building materials during the war. He spoke of the many pent-up needs of the city, created by nearly four years of war. ‘How could he...’, he asked, ‘...justify spending money and asking for scarce material to house an airplane?’ People and their housing came first.
Mayor Chandler points out some detail to pilot Bob Little . [via Harry Friedman]
As early as November 16th of that year, newspapers were printing stories of how the aircraft had been abandoned and sat exposed to the weather and to vandals on a ramp at the airport. One picture showed upholstery torn by souvenir hunters. ‘Belle’s Gallantry Forgotten, She Rots On Ramp,’ said a headline in the Commercial Appeal. ‘She’s sitting at the Airport, weathering away,’ said another.
Newspapers Aviation correspondent Robert Gray wrote: ‘The gallant B-17 Flying Fortress which etched a blazing trail of invincibility and valor through embattled skies over Europe, continues in her adopted home town as just another war-weary veteran - apparently forgotten except by the wind and the rain and perhaps an occasional souvenir hunter. When visited yesterday the once proud’ ‘Belle’ displayed a open window opposite the pilot’s seat, as though inviting the elements to come in. The bomb bay doors, through which passed death and destruction for Hitler’s domain on 25 separate missions, were open. The front escape hatch, which never had to be used during combat flights, was open to the Fall dampness. The waist windows were only partly closed and the entrance door flapped in the chilled afternoon breeze. A gaping hole in the left tip of the horizontal stabilizer, obviously put there by another vehicle or plane brushing into the ‘Belle’ was reminiscent of the flak wounds she suffered in do-or-die action. The tail wheel tire was almost flat and the other two tires were under-inflated. Oil drippings had consolidated with dirt to make ugly splotches under each of the four engines, which now are faulty from inattention, Inside the ‘Belle’ is as dishevelled as any castoff long-exposed to the elements. The upholstery in the radio compartment is tattered and torn. So is the side covering in the pilot’s compartment. Seat cushions andradio headphones with which the famed ship was fitted upon arriving here on her last journey are now missing. Some of the fire extinguisher holders are empty. There is considerable evidence of tampering.
Newspapers in the immediate post-war years were notorious for being printed with very coarse
screening and on very poor quality paper, so it is remarkable that this cutting survives!
It relates to the days when the Memphis Belle was, to all intents and purposes abandoned on the parking ramp at Memphis Airport.
When the ‘Belle’ landed at the airport here last July 17th, flown from Altus, Okia,, aircraft graveyard by a Memphis crew headed by Cap Robert Little, she was accorded a warm welcome by Mayor Chandler and other city officials and proclaimed ’a historic asset to be shared by every citizen’. The plane had officially become the property of Memphis and its citizens. The Mayor announced the ‘Belle’ would be put in befittingly plush quarters - a glass enclosure - at the fairgrounds where all could share in her past glory. But four months have passed since she came back here, and the “Memphis Belle’ is still as homeless as a cloud and far more discarded and neglected. Her 25 missions and score of eight Nazi planes shot down now dimmed by time and no longer the glamourized idol of a thankful people, our heroine of reclaimed glory four months ago is today a mess.
As to future plans for the valiant veteran. Mayor Polk who inherited the project from Mayor Chandler, said yesterday there is nothing new to report.. ‘I have no information on that to give now’, Mayor Polk said '‘It’s something we have to work on’.
Stung by the critical news stories Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence Gilbert of the Fourth Ferrying Command out at the airport brought the aircraft into one of his hangars - but it was clear to all that this was only a temporary solution, a proper home needed to be found.
To the Smithsonian?
On June 26th 1947 under a headline which read ‘Museum makes bid for Memphis Belle’ the following appeared in the Memphis Commercial Appeal: Gallant B-17 May Find Haven at Smithsonian. The ‘Memphis Belle’ gallant B-17 Flying Fortress which made history in the skies over embattled Europe and is now stored in a hangar at the Memphis Army Airfield, is among the aircraft being considered for display in the proposed National Air Museum in Washington.
The museum would be in the hall adjacent to the Smithsonian Institution and would house the ‘Belle’ the ‘Enola Gay’, B-29 Superfort which dropped the first atomic bomb; ‘Flak Bait’, [a twin-engined Martin B-26 Marauder 41-31733] and other notable planes. In addition, the museum would display representative types of German, Japanese and. Italian aircraft and aeronautical equipment captured by Air Technical Intelligence men in World War II. Plans for the project were disclosed by Grover C. Loenlng, aeronautical engineer and member of the Advisory Committee for the Museum, upon a visit to the Air Material Command, at Wright Field.Ohio.
‘The City of Memphis has not been approached on the subject...’ City Commissioner Grashot said yesterday. ‘When we are, we will give it full consideration’. The plane has been officially regarded as something of a ‘step-child’ since its return here last summer from an aircraft graveyard at Altus. Okla. In the light of subsequent events, if the Smithsonian Institution HAD gone through and obtained the aircraft - they did after all, do everything else in this proposal - it would have avoided all the many problems and squabbles that occurred over the passing years!
Robert Gray, the Commercial Appeal’s reporter who rode the Memphis Belle on her trip from Altus to Memphis, led the fight during those early years to keep the plight of the aircraft in the public eye. It was on July 19th, 1948, two years after that triumphant flight home from Altus, when expectations had been so high, that a story under Bob Gray’s by-line appeared under the headline, ‘Two More Years of Ignominy Add Dust to Memphis Belle and Shame to Her Owners.’
But who were those owners? It was commonly thought that they could only be the people. That had been the wish of former Mayor Chandler in returning a donor’s check for $350. It had been peanuts, that price, but it was the taxpayers who paid. They owned the plane now. ‘Two years have passed but the Memphis Belle today remains a symbol without honor in her own home town...’ reported Bob Gray. ‘She is still in a hangar, supposedly protected, but gathering dust.’ He added that, somehow, parts of the aircraft continued to disappear.
Gray’s complaints got something moving, although some of the solutions proposed could only bring shudders to true friends of the aircraft. One came from Joseph Durra, the manager of Durra Products - his plan was to cover the aircraft with a protective coating. Frank Boyd, the Chairman of the Memphis Belle Committee revealed that one home being considered was in Bellevue Park. Another home under consideration was in Overton Park. Both proposals involved coating the aircraft inside and out with a transparent plastic solution.
Two views taken inside the TANG hangar that shows a wealth of detail information! In the background can be seen a USAF marked German V-1 flying bomb. The Memphis Belle itself is showing signs of having damage to the nose and side windows. Amazingly, it also shows a completely different arrangement to the ‘stars’ above the bomb symbols - not only are they in different positions, they are ALL painted yellow here - gone are the red outlines on some! There is also a mysterious letter ‘Q’ above them towards the rear of the line. The date, according to the rear of the original is September 21st 1948. [via Harry Friedman]
One far more ‘threatening’ proposal, came from Colonel Donald Fargo, commander of the 21st Air Division out at the airport. Colonel Fargo’s plan was to cut off the nose and use that as a memento in the Memphis Museum, while the remaining parts were used as training aids for Air Force Reserve personnel. In reply, Robert Taylor, a Memphis attorney and one of the men who had helped fly the aircraft back to city, said it best: ‘...to cut up the Memphis Belle would be sacrilege’.
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