Glen wrote:
The Movie Airforce that came out during the War that featured B-17 D Mary Ann
The B-17 "Mary Ann" in the 1943 Warner Bros motion picture
Air Force was not a B-17D. If you study the film carefully, you will see that the airplane was actually a modified B-17B with flat waist windows and an offset commander's dome. The airplane has no cowl flaps like a B-17D and it has the early type of scoops on the nacelles. I (with the help of many others) have been trying to figure out the serial number of this airplane for a few years now. A photo of the Mary Ann can be found on page 155 of
WWII AMERICAN WAR EAGLES 1937-1942 (Warren M. Bodie) where the airplane is referred to in error as a B-17C. As stated above, the commander's dome on the movie airplane is off set to the right as on a B-17B and the airplane was retrofitted with flat waist windows and later type radio hatch and the ventral blister deleted. A few B-17B airplanes were modified in this manner. A well-known example is B-17B # 38-211 as seen on page 17 of
THE B-17 FLYING FORTRESS STORY by Roger A. Freeman. The modified 38-211 is often mistaken for a B-17C. TonyM.
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