Many of you know that my frustrated childhood dream was flying an American bomber. The reasons it didn’t happen are fairly numerous and unimportant at this point. But there were reasons for that dream. American bombers are one of the most potent weapons that we can damage an enemy with, they are truly offensive weapons, whereas fighters are a defensive weapon, and just as I preferred playing offense in football, I believe in winning wars. When I was a boy and still to this day, I marvel at those magnificent men and their flying machines.
I recently ran across a film I want to share with you about one of the bombers that proved the case for daylight bombing, in fact, the very first one to complete the 25 missions that were deemed enough for any man, Here is that story, of the missions and the restoration to a place of honor of the Memphis Belle, a B-17E aircraft of the 8th United States Army Air Force and it’s 91st Bomb Group.
Yes, I know, you had to go to YouTube to see that, and I hope you either did or will, well at least you didn’t have to go to St. Nazaire. She’s there now at the National Museum of the US Air Force, the pioneer of all the Forts, the Libs, the B-29s, B-36s, B-47s, B-52s, B-1s, and B-2s that have followed her contrails. And yes, to a point the V Bombers as well, for their mission was the same. There is, after all, a reason why the organ at St. Clement Danes in London, the home church of the Royal Air Force is a gift from the United States Air Force.*
About a year after the Belle came home for her war bond tour, the Americans and the British won air superiority over Europe, making the invasion possible. We still hold that superiority all around the world and that is one reason why, and a big one, as to why the world has been a much more peaceful place since 1945. The crews called the fort simply the queen, and so she was and is.
Like many of us of my age, most of the men I knew growing up were veterans of World War II and/or Korea, and a few from Vietnam. They epitomized what I thought a man should be, and they still do. I never heard one say it was too hard, nor did I ever hear an excuse from any one of them. Some of the ones I met were famous like Generals Doolittle and LeMay, but most were the guys down at the coffee shop, just doing their jobs as well as they could, loving their families and going down to the Legion post for a beer on occasion. Something I noticed as a boy was that they almost never talked about the war and snorted in derision and contempt of anyone who did. Our world is the monument to what Tommy Adkins and GI Joe accomplished.
And so many of those guys are still there, at Cambridge in England, 3811 of our war dead, and a listing of the 6127 still missing, that list includes Major Glenn Miller by the way.
The crew of the Belle are all gone, and those men who restored her have moved on to other projects, but they together have left an indelible monument to the valor and hard work of the Americans who paved the way (at the cost of more casualties than the US Marine Corps took in World War Two) did for the liberation of Europe and the world.
- I wrote about St Clement Danes a few years ago on our sister site,, AATW, The post is called Church of the Dragonslayers