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Remembering Yvonne Craig on her birthday.

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#Annika von Holdt

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On This Day - May 18, 1943 – The “Memphis Belle”, one of a group of American bombers based in Britain, becomes the first B-17 to complete 25 missions over Europe. The “Memphis Belle” flew its 25th and last mission, in a bombing raid against Lorient, a German submarine base.

However, while “Memphis Belle” and crew returned home and were made famous for its exploits and bond tour, and later by the Hollywood movie of the same name back in 1990, the Memphis Belle was actually not the first bomber to fly 25 bombing missions and return back to base safely each time.

William Waldock, an academic from Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) in Daytona, Florida has revealed that it was the 8th Air Force’s B-24 named “Hot Stuff” (below photo) flying out of Hardwick Station, England, that was the first bomber to make 25 missions and return home, not the “Memphis Belle”. “Hot Stuff” flew her final and 25th mission in February of 1943, which was over three months earlier than the “Memphis Belle” completed her 25 missions. In fact, it is believed that “Memphis Belle” was the third (and second B-17) to complete 25 successful missions.

“Hot Stuff” later crashed in Iceland under the command of Captain Robert Shannon in May of the same year. “Hot Stuff” was being flown home to the US after completing 31 missions and was slated to do a bond tour celebrating its service. On the return journey Lieutenant General Frank Andrews (Andrews AFB) took over the flying and the plane hit severe weather conditions. The plane flew into zero visibility and crashed into the side of a mountain near the airfield in Iceland and only one out of the 15 man crew survived.

The second bomber to have completed 25 missions is said to have been the B-17, “Hell’s Angels”, flying from RAF Molesworth and whose 25th mission was a bombing mission to St. Nazaire, France, on 13 May, but it wasn’t widely promoted since its name wasn’t aesthetically pleasing to the War Department. It therefore fell to “Memphis Belle” as the face of bomber aircraft during the war. However, “Hells Angels” went on to fly a total of 48 missions (with different crews) before returning to the US in January of 1944 to tour various war factories.

Waldock says that because “Hot Stuff” crashed and never made it home it never became as well-known as “Memphis Belle”. Waldock also discovered that Lieutenant General Andrews was a VIP getting a return flight back to the US along with his close aides and staff, who took the place of the bomber’s original crew.

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Memphis Belle: The 75th Anniversary of the 25th Mission

(This post was written by Criss Kovac. Criss is the supervisor of the Motion Picture Preservation Lab.)

The statistics were overwhelmingly against them.  With a million German troops and 40,000 anti-aircraft guns waiting the odds were roughly 50-50 they’d make it home alive.  Completing 25 bombing runs lowered those odds to less than 25%.  Not to mention that casualties of the 8th Army Air Forces would exceed those of the entire US Marine Corps during WWII.

But, as a crew of a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress you didn’t think about those odds.  You did your job just as the crew of the Memphis Belle did.  On May 17th, 1943 they were one of the first to complete 25 missions without being shot down.  As heroes – congratulated by royalty, awarded Distinguished Flying Crosses, and immortalized on film – they were rewarded by crisscrossing America selling war bonds with Stuka, their Scottish terrier mascot.

Over fifteen hours of film shot by William Wyler and his cinematographers documenting the plane and her crew resides at the National Archives.  While Memphis Belle: Story of a Flying Fortress  has been widely available, the raw footage of the victory tour and much of the footage shot in England and over Germany has not.  

Memphis Belle, A Story of a Flying Fortress, 1946

In honor of the 75th anniversary NARA partnered with Vulcan Productions and Creative Differences to digitally preserve the outtakes and revitalize the stories and experiences of 8th Army Airmen in The Cold Blue, a new documentary directed by Erik Nelson.  The original Kodachrome was scanned by NARA staff in 4K resolution using our Spirit scanner.  While the color of the originals remains beautiful, the film has shrunken over time, requiring careful handling and slow scanning speeds to avoid damage.  In total, it took 80 hours to scan the reels and generated over 80 TB worth of data.

To create the 72 minute long documentary, Nelson used the archival footage from Wyler’s outtakes along with some original footage shot in Berlin during July of 1945.  The Cold Blue uses the original footage and accounts of veterans to illustrate the complexity of the missions, highlight the camaraderie of the crew, show appreciation for the ground crews, and to explore their thoughts on the events as they occurred, and looking back seventy-five years later.

The world premiere of The Cold Blue will be screened at the main Archives Building in the McGowan Theater on June 16th, 2018 at 3:00 p.m.  You can see a trailer of Cold Blue here and the individual reels of Wyler’s outtakes here. See before and after shots of the film’s restoration here.

Keep reading at Memphis Belle: The 75th Anniversary of the 25th Mission | The Unwritten Record

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