Shoo Shoo Baby (B-17)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shoo Shoo Baby (later called Shoo Shoo Shoo Baby) is the name of a B-17G-35-BO Flying Fortress, 42-32076. It was named by her crew for a song made popular by The Andrews Sisters. It flew 24 combat missions from England with the 91st Bomb Group from March 1944 until crash-landing at Malmö Airport, Sweden in May 1944. Being neutral, Sweden interned the crew, and about the same time a deal was made between the Swedish and U.S. governments to allow around 300 American crewmen to return in exchange for nine B-17Fs and Gs that had landed intact in Sweden. Seven of these were converted by Saab Aircraft into airliners that could carry 14 passengers.[1] Shoo Shoo Shoo Baby flew for SILA (now Scandinavian Airlines). In December 1945, it was one of two B-17s sold to the Danish Air Lines (DDL), until June 1947. The B-17 was subsequently transferred in March 1948 to the Danish Army Air Corps, her nickname was Store Bjørn, and in December 1949, to the Danish Navy. Then, from October 1952, to the Royal Danish Air Force as ESK-721; finally retiring a year later. After two years in storage, she was sold as F-BGSP to the Institut Géographique National, a French aerial mapping company based in Creil outside Paris. Last flown in July 1961, the remains of the plane were donated to the U.S. Air Force in 1972. A restoration was undertaken between 1978–1988 at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware by the 512th Military Airlift Wing in an effort that tallied some 60,000 man hours, and the aircraft was flown to Dayton in October 1988, restored as Shoo Shoo Shoo Baby. Put on display in place of long-time exhibit DB-17P 44-83624, which was subsequently sent to the Air Mobility Command Museum at Dover Air Force Base, sans its top turret, which it gave up for the restoration of 42-32076, the reborn veteran can be seen today at the National Museum of the United States Air Force near Dayton, Ohio. The name was restored to Shoo Shoo Baby after it had been on display as delivered for a time, and, due to the amount of skin work required to restore its wartime appearance, it is finished in olive drab and grey, instead of bare-metal as it was in operations. When the Memphis Belle restoration is complete, it will replace Shoo Shoo Baby as the museum's B-17 exhibit.
[edit] Reference
- ^ Boeing B-17G “Shoo Shoo Shoo Baby”. National Museum of the USAF. Retrieved on January 9, 2007.
- Freeman, Roger A. with Osborne, David, The B-17 Flying Fortress Story, Arms & Armour Press, an imprint of the Cassell Group, London, WC2R 0BB, 1998, ISBN 1-85409-301-0.
- Thompson, Scott A., Final Cut - The Post-War B-17 Flying Fortress: The Survivors, Revised Edition, Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, Missoula, Montana, 2000, ISBN 1-57510-077-0.
