B-17 Flying Fortress

"The B-17 Flying Fortress was primarily employed by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) in the daylight precision strategic bombing campaign of World War II against German industrial and military targets. The United States Eighth Air Force, based at many airfields in southern England, and the Fifteenth Air Force, based in Italy, complemented the RAF Bomber Command's nighttime area bombing in the Combined Bomber Offensive to help secure air superiority over the cities, factories and battlefields of Western Europe in preparation for the invasion of France in 1944. The B-17 also participated to a lesser extent in the War in the Pacific, early in World War II, where it conducted raids against Japanese shipping and airfields." (wiki) The aircraft represented here is a B-17G-20-BO 42-31616 The Spirit of 'FLAK-WOLF' of the 427th BS flown by 1Lt Emmittes Harrison, February 1944. On 09 April 1944 (Mission 132) to Marienburg 1Lt Harrison and his crew were "scheduled to fly in B-17G Spirit of Flak Wolf in which they had flown 14 missions. As guns were being loaded the Operations Officer drove up and told the crew that they were to fly in B-17G #42-3158 Max. The crew rushed to the alternate B-17 only to witness that Spirit of Flak Wolf, piloted by 1Lt John J. McGarry, Jr. crashed on take-off and killing six of the crew and injuring four. Afterwards the crew wondered, if battle orders hadn't been changed, this might have happened to them." (http://www.303rdbg.com/)