Found this on the AeroVintage website, under B-17 news.
http://www.aerovintage.com/b17news.htm
Have any of you heard of a B-17 Gas Station in Mn before?
Some intersting stuff on the B-25 News page as well...
An interesting story comes from Troy Westrum about a B-17 tail section that eventually went into the static restoration of B-17G 44-83542, displayed at Kermit Weeks Fantasy of Flight facility at Polk City, Florida. Troy did a writeup on this tail section in the late 1980s/early 1990s that appeared in Warbirds International that had a few photos also.
"It might be interesting for you to know that I have a connection with the B-17 on display at Kermit Weeks Fantasy of Flight Museum. The fuselage section from the horizontal stab to the rear of the wing I recovered and sold to Tom Reilly in the early 1990's. Tom used this section for the static rebuild of the B-17 which you can walk through at Fantasy of Flight. It had been buried and used as a storm shelter. It had been on a "Gas-Station B-17" in Minnesota. The aircraft had become an eye-sore and was removed to a farm field in the early 1970's where it sat until about the mid 1980's. At that point the rear fuselage was removed and buried as a storm shelter. The engines,props,seats,wheels and instruments were removed and sold. The remainder of the ship was cut up and melted down into ingots by a guy with a mobile salvage business that stumbled upon it. This was about a year or so before I learned of it. What remained was piled up and burnt. I tried in vane to track down any other pieces that might have survived. I did find some oil shutter assemblies and some fuel tank cradles and a few other odds and ends. Eventually, a top turret and a belly turret turned up that came from the same area. I'm pretty confident that these came from the same aircraft but were not found by me."
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