By May 1943, the Memphis Belle and her crew had completed their twenty-five officially credited missions over enemy-occupied Europe - now it was time to go home. Perhaps it was the filming. Maybe it was the radio broadcasts. Perhaps it was the growing interest shown by the press, but Captain Morgan and the crew of the Memphis Belle were rapidly becoming public property. It was now that the myths, legends and overall garbage seemed to start in earnest.
91st log, May 15 1943. ‘...The ‘Memphis Belle,’ piloted by Captain Robert K. Morgan, completed its 25th mission today. Although this crew does not have the record of completing 25 missions without a turnback, it is one of the first crews to complete 25 missions for the 91st Group intact. It is rumoured that the ‘Memphis Belle’ with her highly publicised crew will shortly depart for the United States, where it will tour the entire country in support of the forthcoming bond drive. Preparations have been made to take extensive moving pictures of this aircraft and its crew, although the purpose of this project has not yet passed beyond the rumor stage.
Captain Theodore Parker, 91st BG Historian.
The same day Captain Theodore Parker, the Group historian, recorded that:’ The King and Queen of England, accompanied by a rather large retinue of officials, gentlemen-of-honour and ladies-in-waiting, visited Bassingbourn just before lunch today. Rumors of their impending visit had been going the rounds for the past two weeks. Everyone could tell from the state of excitement and the tension which existed prior to their arrival that they were in the immediate vicinity. They arrived in six large, comfortable-looking limousines at approximately 1115 hours, were met at the gate by Colonel Wray and his staff, received the salute from the guard of honor, and proceeded to give Bassingbourn one of the most cursory goings-over that this old and well-established airdrome has ever had. Generals Eaker, Longfellow, Hansell, and several unidentified United States Army Air Forces officers were also present. The King and Queen drove around the taxi strip, through the hangars and into one of the dispersal areas. The King and Queen met Captain Morgan and the crew of the rapidly becoming famous ‘Memphis Belle’. Captain Morgan did a very good job of meeting the King and Queen and showing them his aircraft. At the conclusion of this ceremony, they returned to the main administration building, where the formal farewells were said. Their visit to Bassingbourn probably lasted all of 45 minutes. As soon as they had concluded their tour and received another salute from the guard of honor, the entire party returned to their limousines and proceeded in the general direction of Brampton Grange’.
Their Royal Highnesses inspecting the guard of Honour near the main gate ar Station 121.
Saturday May 15 was the day of 91st BG Mission #59, scheduled target Wilhelmshaven, in actuality, Heligoland. Colonel Reid was Group Leader aboard 42-5137. For Bob Morgan aboard the Memphis Belle, it was to be a rough seven-hour flight. They experienced onboard communications problems and poor manifold pressure in one of the engines. Nevertheless, they made it out, and they made it back. It was Morgan’s 24th combat mission and the Memphis Belle’s 23rd. From the Bomb Squadron logs, it is possible to state with certainty that the 91st BG provided twenty-five aircraft. The take-off time was around 0750hrs, time over the target was recorded as 1054hrs and time expected back to base was 1330hrs. Clearly something is amiss here - it would be impossible for the Memphis Belle and her crew to be presented to the King and Queen spiffed up in their best uniforms sometime between 1115 and 1200hrs at around the same time when they had not long left the target and were heading back home!
Time now to jump forward a number of years - to March 1989, to be precise. I was preparing an article for the UK aviation magazine ‘Wingspan’ at the request of its editor Alan Forberg and picked up this apparent conflict of information. However, a check with the King and Queen’s Engagements Diary held at that time at Clarence House, London, showed that all the information recorded in the 91st log was correct. All that is, apart from one item - the visit date was not May 15, it was eleven days later on May 26! Which was correct? It is a fact that the May 15 raid did take place, and the Memphis Belle did take part. That cannot be questioned, and the four Squadron logs prove it. However, the royal visit did not and could not have taken place on the 15th, so the King and Queen couldn’t meet Bob Morgan, his crew and the aircraft on that day. Further evidence to show that this meeting never took place that day is in the Clarence House Engagement Diary, which indicates that the King and Queen had no appointments and spent all day at Buckingham Palace in London.
This is how I reported the matter in the ‘Wingspan’ article - the royal visit took place on May 26 1943 and that, for some unknown reason, the 91st log was incorrect. From March 1989 through to November 5 2006, this is what I believed to be correct. On that day, I discovered a set of seven previously unseen images of the royal visit in the archives of the Tower Museum at Bassingbourn.
What was so important about these was that they were original large format USAAF negatives and contained the characteristic ‘data blocks’ of information marked on the edges of the negatives by the Base Photographic Lab, not usually printed up on any photographs from the negative.
This ‘data Block’ followed s a standard format - two sections of information contained in separate parentheses, followed by very basic subject details. For instance, (GPR-77-2-91)(29-7-43) M/Sgt Giambrone Crew Chief) translates into (Group Roll 77, Frame 2, 91st Bomb Group) (July 29 1943). The remainder is the caption. Standard practice was that this was marked on the negative at the time of processing. It is this data that historians and authors have relied on as being the most accurate record of what each image contains.
gunner John Quinlan. The feather in the Queen’s hat is visible above the shoulder of
the crew member on the left, standing adjacent to Ira Eaker who is facing the camera.
The visit was reported in at least one British newspaper - with a May 27th dateline -
who reported that ‘...ground crew chief M/Sgt Joseph M Giabrone of Norristown PA
admitted that he felt ‘sorta speechless’ while talking with the Queen’.
We have printed the image to show the negative in its entirety, the data block clearly
shows GPR-55-3-91 and the date of 15-5-43. According to the Wyler documentary,
this happened after the famous 25th mission...!
When we looked closely at these negatives, we were able to clearly see (GPR-55-3-91) (15-5-43) King and Queen on the first one we picked up. Here was apparent confirmation that the date was indeed May 15 1943 for the visit. We looked at the other negatives - all clearly showed the date 15-5-43.
Another letter was sent to the royal archives, which by now had moved to Windsor Castle following the death of Queen Elizabeth, seeking clarification and if possible, confirmation of the actual date according to their records. A reply dated November 14 2006 confirmed that May 26 1943 was the date of the royal visit to Bassingbourn.
Group Roll 43, frame 1, 91st Bomb Group, dated 19th May 1943. How is it that this coding comes BEFORE the royal visit photographs in the 91st Bomb Group Photographic Labs filing system?
Just what was going on, and why is that day’s entry so wildly in error with other records? It was starting to look as if there some form of skulduggery afoot. Was there subterfuge going on that resulted in a cover-up? And if so, why? Were the records’ amended’ to match the movie?
The claim that the Memphis Belle and her crew completed their 25th mission that day - the day of the supposed Wilhelmshaven mission - matches the spurious claim made in the Wyler movie, as does the sentence that says ‘Although this crew does not have the record of completing 25 missions without a turnback, it is one of the first crews to complete 25 missions for the 91st Group intact’.
Note the use of the word ‘intact’. We have already seen that the crew was not intact. At least Parker has the good grace to record that the Memphis Belle crew was ‘one of the crews’, not the first as many later claims made! The final sentence of that particular paragraph is also very puzzling. ‘Preparations have been made to take extensive moving pictures of this aircraft and its crew, although the purpose of this project has not yet passed beyond the rumor stage’.
This contradicts Parker’s own 91st log entry of May 7, where he records his own involvement when ‘...During the past several days, Captain William ‘Ace’ Clothier has been busily engaged in taking colored motion pictures of Bassingbourn. He has been assisted in this work by several officers of the 91st Group, including Captain Parker and Lieutenants Hance and Crego.... ...The whole effort is being built around the aircraft, ‘Memphis Belle’, and its crew, which is commanded by Lieutenant Robert K. Morgan. Approximately 5,000 feet of film have been shot to date, and Captain Clothier expects to complete his efforts on the ground within the next few days’.
How can something be quite detailed one day - May 7 - and then have a purpose that is nothing more than a rumour a few days later? Also, it should be noted that Parker managed to get Morgan’s rank wrong in the May 7 entry - he was a Captain as early as December 1942! Parker’s references regarding the movie are also somewhat in contradiction with what else is known, in that Wyler’s efforts initially featured another B-17, Invasion II, piloted by Lt Oscar O’Neil. However, Invasion II was shot down and the film crew had to find another aircraft - and quick! Wyler settled on the Memphis Belle.
William Wyler himself claimed in a later interview that he had personally arranged for the King and Queen to visit Bassingbourn specifically to review the Memphis Belle and her crew. He suggested that the very shortness of the visit - recorded as just 45 minutes - added credance to his claim. However, it seems unlikely that even Hollywood could control the actions of British royalty, but could there be an underlying reason here for the ‘errors’?
May mystery even further. Bob Morgan was tired when he typed it - very tired, for he
dated it 15th May 1942, when it should be 1943. But was it the Belle’s 24th as he says? If
so, that date should be 17th May - the aircraft’s 24th and his 25th. The tone of the 2nd
and 4th paragraphs suggests that for Morgan it was all over - ‘...the Col. said I that I am
one of the first to go...’. But no talk of meeting the King and Queen, not even a hint.
Perhaps that is a sure indication that it had not happened yet!
When one looks at all these discrepancies, all so neatly concentrated in one small section relating to the so-called ‘last mission to Wilhelmshaven’, it is hard to come to any other conclusion than that the official 91st Bomb Group log was somewhat incompetently ‘doctored’ - almost certainly by Captain Parker - to match in with the ‘schedule of events’ as planned to go in the movie by Major William Wyler who, although only a Major at the time, certainly had the political muscle behind him in the shape of General ‘Hap’ Arnold to order such a thing. This deception also included the negatives held by the Photo-Lab.
It is reasonable to assume that Parker - and therefore Wyler - knew that the log and also some, if not all, of the photos taken of the royal visit would eventually go to the Pentagon and the War Department - and that there was a high degree of possibility that in the future any claims made by Wyler in the movie would be checked against this log. So by making these innocuous ‘changes’ to the 91st log - that do not directly imnvolve the serious matter of recording combat after all - that the photographs and movie script should all broadly match!
The errors and discrepancies relating to this Royal visit goes on well into the 21st century. Menno Deurken’s 1987 book Memphis Belle Home at Last quotes the date as being May 16. He was probably following the 91st log. On pages 213-216 of the Morgan/Powers book, they go into great detail as to the Royal meeting - and Morgan says the date was May 18! Nevertheless, Morgan is very clear about one thing - the date of the Royal visit was definitely AFTER they had all reached the magic 25 mission total.
Continued in Dispelling the Myths Again! Part Seven
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