Attn shoppers: B-17 scrapping in England

[Chris Brame]

I usually put this kind of post over at the Aero Vintage forum when I find new shots of B-17 stateside trainers, but this might also be of interest here:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Org-Photo-92nd ... SwDMVdaEZQ
Seller has misidentified the one on the left as 42-37755 but it's actually 42-37753; nicknamed Mortimer per David Osborne's list:

42-37753 Del Denver 17/8/43; ass 813BS/482BG [PC-O] Alconbury 19/9/43 with Oboe Mk I radar; tran 326/92BG [JW-Q] Podington 21/2/44; sal 13/10/45. MORTIMER.

Note the serial has been relocated to add the "WW" code (War Weary) behind it. Any guesses where this might be? Somewhere in England? Over to the experts... happy bidding!

[lucky52]

I wonder what happened to all the .50 cal. machine guns?

[Snake45]

I wonder what happened to all the .50 cal. machine guns?

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if a few of them weren't firing in anger somewhere in the world, even as we speak.

[marine air]

A couple years ago, the U.S. Army arsenal had a Browning M-2 turned in that had a serial number in the 300’s. I think it was manufactured in the early 1920’s. Periodically the guns receive upgrades and modifications. This one, which they think came from a National Guard armory in a western state, had never received the WW II upgrades!
Probably a “pet” like the national guard M-151A2 Mutts that hung around for years, long after they were supposed to be retired. They will be around forever. They’re that good of a design.

[marine air]

It’s on the internet. It was serial number 324 built 94 years ago. It was turned in to the Anniston Army Depot in perfect condition and had never had any upgrades. So yeah, there are thousands of them built during WW II still out there.

[17f]

That photo legitimately hurts my soul.

[Flat 12x2]

................... Any guesses where this might be? Somewhere in England? Over to the experts... happy bidding!

Well RAF Burtonwood/USAAF Base Air Depot 1 scrapped lots of B-17's amongst other aircraft (I don't think they ever melted anything down, just broke them up into large sections)



240 miles away at Pulham St Mary sections of USAAF aircraft were broken down further, Pulham was not an airfield, so the sections would have had to be trucked in, Pulham was in the middle of the USAAF bomber bases, so did they fly them to Burtonwood to truck them back? I don't know.

Pulham 1947, (if you sign up you can zoom in for great detail)
https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/search?keywords=pulham&country=global&year=all

[Richard W.]

Sad to see the proud old birds broken up, but at least it meant that they didn't need to be used anymore by our young men.

[simon king]

Pelham was an airship base and you can see one of the airship sheds in the aerial photo

[RAMC181]

The ones in the Burtonwood photo are most likely brand new aircraft awaiting final delivery to combat units.
Pulham was a regional salvage depot for all the local bases both RAF and USAAF by the end of WWII, with the RAF's No.53 Maintenance Unit running the site and dealing with crash recovered wreckage as well as written-off airframes.

[RAMC181]

I carried on digging with the initial photo, and roughly merged it with a second image of the same scene which turned up online to get this:

From the date 42-37753 was salvaged (October 1945) and the preponderance of 92BG and 384BG aircraft in the photo, the location is almost certainly on or near Istres AB in France where both units moved to in the summer of 1945.