posted 11-18-2010 08:25 AM               

The reason this aircraft was depicted by the museum's B-17 may have had something to do with that, but there is another reason that this B-17 is important. Miss Liberty Belle flew with the 305th Bomb Group (also a group formerly based at Grissom), and flew 65 combat missions over Europe.

The story of her last mission is very special. Miss Liberty Belle took of on her 65th mission just as she had done before. This time while nearing the target, it was hit by flak. The crew had to shut down the number two engine, but was able to keep up with the group, and drop their bombs on target. While flying home, they were attacked by fighters, and they lost another engine. So she limped home on two engines.

As she neared her home base in Chelveston, she turned final and off to the right her pilots noticed another B-17 firing flares. This indicated wounded aboard. The crew of MLB had no wounded crew, and decided to let the other shot up B-17 land first to try and save their squadron mates.

While going around MLB's 3rd engine shut down. Now on one engine the crew was losing altitude, and heading for a small town. The pilot fire walled the good engine, and turned away from the town so that they would not come down in it. MLB crashed just outside of the town.

Locals tried to pull crew out of the aircraft, and managed to save two of the 10 men aboard. To this day the village still talks about the brave actions the crew of Miss Liberty Belle took to save friends and a local town.

We are restoring this B-17, and are planning a dedication for the surviving crew and family members of the crew. We are selling T-shirts with the aircraft's nose art on it to help with the restoration costs. I was just wondering if anyone here would be interested. Here is a link to the design for the back of the shirts.

The shirts are $25 plus $5 flat rate shipping. Let me know if there is anyone interested.