Thanks Jerry 0'Neill and Mustangdriver, thats some great detective work finding those pictures of N17W and N3703G passing back through Iceland after the filming of Memphis Belle was completed.
The "Kathleen" on N17W’s nose was applied at the end of filming at Binbrook, and at this point she was flying with the code DP-Y and tail number 124848 on her left (pilot's) side and DP-K 124249 on her right (co pilot's side). It is possible that the right side markings were used when she carried the vinyl nose art for “Black Eyed Pea” and the left side markings were used for “Buckaroo” vinyl, as both nose arts are featured in the DVD “The other Stars of Memphis Belle”, but until conclusive photographic evidence appears of N17W carrying the “Buckaroo” and “Black Eyed Pea” identities, all this has to remain as an educated guess.
The 124249 tail number tallies up with Patrick Bunce’s picture in Flypast’s “Flying Memphis Belle B-17s” article which shows N17W flying with the “Black Eyed Pea” nose art on the right (co-pilots) side, but the aircraft letter looks like J, not K. Then if you look closely in the film, when N17W is carrying the "Black Eyed Pea" nose art on the left (pilot's) side of her nose, it's painted directly over the "Clooney Baby" nose art which is still partially visible underneath, and so the Squadron codes and tail numbers probably hadn't been changed from her "Clooney Baby" MJ-K 22656 identity. Finally, one of N17Ws last tasks at Binbrook was to appear as “Buckaroo” for the hangar dance, and Alan Tomkins suggests that the DP-Y 124848 markings were applied at the same time. There is another thread concerning N17W when she was flyable, and so I’ll put an appeal for information on that one as well for more conclusive evidence.
The other photo that accompanied the picture of N17W transiting through Iceland on flickr.com was of N3703G, which by this point was unnamed and carrying DP-L on her left (pilots) side and DP-V on her right (co-pilots) side with heavily blanked out tail numbers. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it was quite an easy short cut for Enigma Film's art department to change an F into a P to create another fictitious squadron of aircraft. I concentrated on the more substancial nose arts featured during the film during my research and stayed away from aircraft that carried just titling only as they made more interesting subjects for Nigel Franklyn of
http://www.kitsworld.co.uk , but largely according to Stuart Craig and Alan Tomkins, N3703G also flew as "Mary Lou" DP-H 121485, "Sweet Maureen", ZQ-T 22980, "Sweet Dreams" ZQ-Z 22330, unnamed DF-H 124435 (a quick reworking of the Memphis Belle markings) and unnamed DF-T 22981. G-BEDF also flew as "Lady Jane" DP-O 124888, "My Zita" DP-B and "Hot Lips" ZQ-G 22343 while F-BEEA was unnamed and carried DP-N 228651 at the time of her crash.
I read about Liberty Belle's engine fire yesterday. Absolutely heart breaking. I walked through her when she was over in the UK for Legends at Duxford in 2008 and the restoration work was superb. Let's hope some parts can still be salvaged and incorporated into another B-17 restoration project.
Phil,
Surrey, UK
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
