@ Pooler, GA
November 2021
The centerpiece of the National Museum of the Mighty 8th Air Force is this Douglas-built Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress. One distinctive characteristic of the G-variant was the powered Bendix chin turret, seen here without the fairing, fitted under the nose section to add firepower against head-on attacks. During World War II aircraft were sent to England from Hunter Field in Savannah. The 5,000th airplane to be sent was a B-17G appropriately named City of Savannah, bought with half a million dollars donated by the citizens of Savannah. That aircraft survived 44 missions only to come home and be scrapped. Delivered in June 1945, this B-17 airframe (44-83814) never saw any combat and saw a variety of civilian roles and ended up in storage at the National Air and Space Museum before coming to Georgia in 2009.
