Surviving B-17's: Episode 1

it's greg with b17 archaeology and welcome to our youtube channel [Music] now this is the first video and also the first documentary we actually did star duster so we are actually going to do surviving b17s on our youtube channel and star duster is our first video so when we did this episode back in 2017 we did the full production on the video now we're doing it social distancing so greg is actually filming greg jr and we're telling the story so welcome to b17 archaeology it's a cool place to be now when this was general ira akers transport plane all the weaponry was removed the bombays were actually there but they didn't carry bombs all the guns were off because if you took the the men the ammunition and the gun it was nearly 10 000 pounds weight that was removed from this plane which allowed it to fly higher faster and he was higher than the bomb squadron was plus every time he took off to the skies he was accompanied by a by a squadron a p-51 so he didn't need the weapons and it allowed him to do his job much better so as we crawl into the b17 a couple of important facts about this particular b17 i want to point out here on this side it is curtains on the window now even besides the the hatch that was put in for as a meat hauler it had curtains on the planes now again the guns would have been removed there would have been curtains here the reason for this is this is where bunks were so his staff had place to sleep and take a nap so they would actually be able to close the curtains and be able to sleep as the plane was going from italy and to spend a lot of time in russia general ira aker spent a lot of time with russians working with the russians so this is where the crew would have been taking naps a couple bunks in here and there were no weapons so this is kind of his hotel if you will so i have the privilege of sitting in the seat where general ira aker would have sat this was his spot every time his plane took off so if you can imagine being at 35 000 feet skies or blue maybe scattered clouds i have a 180 degree view of the world and down below me would have been the bomb squadrons from the mediterranean allied air force as they're making their bomb run general ira aker was not good five ten thousand feet above them with the squadron of p51s either monitoring his men or he was flying to russia so what an incredible view this must have been and just to be able to sit here and just picture what they were now it's 104 outside it's got to be at least 11520 inside here but when you're flying at 30 000 35 000 feet it's negative 60 degrees so a little bit different than what we're filming here but still what an incredible adventure and just to be able to sit here i'm just in awe on what it must have been like way up in the sky all right so if i was general ira aker coming up from the nose where i would have been sitting i would come through this area now when it was his plane there was no bomb rack because he didn't carry bombs now we get to the radio compartment and it's still hot in here but his crew would have consisted of radio operator his staff that would have been a navigator and would have been the pilot and co-pilot that would have been the crew on the airplane again no guns because he didn't need them that squadron of p51s gave him all the protection he ever needed couple unique things about this particular b-17 first of all it is one of seven surviving b-17s that's a world war ii combat veteran the other unique portion of this is that it was sold after the war to bolivia it became a transport plane and there was a landing gear failure that caused a crash so the wing was removed replaced with another scrapped b-17s wing and it became a meat hauler so for 25 years in bolivia it was flying back and forth over the andes now all the cattle were raised in the highlands and the population was down at the coastal areas so they would actually load this b-17 and when the unique part about this one is they put a cargo hatch in it so the interior was actually gutted there's no radio room there was no bomb bay there wasn't anything in there they would fill this with beef carcasses now there was so much and they were freshly slaughtered they had to punch holes in the aluminum to allow the blood to drain so every time it would land that jolt would leave red on the runway so this is the only b-17 out of the 25 that were meat haulers that has a cargo door out of the 25 there's only two survivors one is with the paul allen collection it was an e model but they took out the cargo door and put it back to its original b17 side with the window so march museum decided march field air museum decided to represent a true b-17 with all the turrets and all the guns they have the cargo door which represents its 25-year history flying over the andes hauling beef and then from this view you can actually see the curtains which was part of the crew when it was general ira acres personal transport plane now came to march on january 10th 1981. the u.s air force decided uh and they found out that this plane was actually still flying so they made a trade for a dc-6 for this old retired b-17 so on january 10th 1981 this b-17 flew in to march airfield here in riverside california and the crew got out two-man crew got out they walked up they walked into the dc-6 they took off at that point this b-17 finally came home and it sits here at marchfield air museum because general ira acre was actually stationed in 1934 at march field so this is kind of a homecoming for this b-17 now on our adventures and on our journeys we have been able to meet some amazing incredible veterans part about my job that's the greatest thing in the entire world is i get to meet all these world war ii veterans i get to hear their stories i get to meet their family they become part of my family once we interview them we go to birthday parties they're amazing people and i met one gentleman harry who worked actually in the douglas factory this b-17 was built in the douglas factory and he his job was the final inspection so as the planes rolled out the hangar he made sure that everything was good to go so harry was out here and we had a premiere when we first premiered our episode of surviving b-17s on dvd he was out here and i told him that this plane from the time he was there and when this plane was built he actually worked on this particular airplane his story was he told me every time a b-17 rolled out the factory he kissed it on on the metal here and said good luck bring our boys home so when we had the premiere he told the story we came out here when i told him about the this b17 was in his time frame when he was there he was 99 he walked out here without the essence of a walker he walked all the way to the front plane got up and walked came out here and he actually kissed the plane so he said this is the only plane he's ever kissed twice that he's ever worked on on his year year and a half that he spent at douglas so an incredible story we were all head we're in tears just the love and the passion that our greatest generation had and what they did so that we can be here today so harry i know you're not with us anymore but thank you for what you did god bless you and she's still here so i've been lucky enough to be able to be in every single position of the b-17 now the ball turned you're in a small spot but you have the radio operator five feet from you you have two waist gunners not more than you know five ten feet from you i'm sitting here in the tail position now some of the veterans we interviewed told me their story about being a tail gunner for me this is the most isolated position on the plane i can't no idea what we're going into all i can see is the carnage and and fire and everything behind me and i got two guns but if my radio line gets cut i have no idea when the bailout bill if that was necessary something happens i gotta crawl through a very small spot to get out in a hurry this section of a tail gunner is absolutely brave to be back here i can't say enough for for the guys that that were here it's absolutely incredible i'm so isolated the sides are no more than two inches three inches from from my head the bailout bill's right here but who knows i got my twin guns i can only see what we went through i have no idea what we were facing absolutely an isolated position it's kind of eerie just sitting back here knowing what what my friends did and what all the the tail gunners had to endure incredible while we're here filming this this particular b17 takes me back long time ago now we did uh some family photos with my two boys they're both 18 and 28 respectively now now the photo here is when my youngest alex was six months old and greg was 10. so i wanted to get a shot in front of the ball turret because this plane was here we have family photos in front of the nose art throughout the years but it's kind of cool that we have the ability to come and do some filming tell the story about uh the b17 and interject some personal stuff about us in there so this b17 uh when we started filming this for our documentary series back in 2017 it was kind of a not even all of drab if you picture super bowl party the avocado dip is out there in the morning by the time the game is done that's the color that this b17 was so it was just a very ugly color so went to the museum and talked with jeff and i said hey let me adopt the plane we're filming it let us put it back to its original world war ii colors and as jeff's eyes rolled back he said yeah okay with uh that little doubt in his voice so i came out here uh people came out here and 130 hours of power washing now it wasn't the power wash it was actually the steam that took off the paint since it's been here at marshfield air museum and before marshfield air museum it was march field museum it's been painted six times in six different uh schemes so the paint was thick the paint's been baked on here so we went there i reached out home depot stepped up and they donated all the paint so the paint that you see because this plane was originally a natural aluminum the paint is so beat up it's been sanded it's been grinding there's been repairs we couldn't bring it back to natural aluminum so we actually painted it we used rust-oleum aluminum metallic paint now there are four coats on this and this thing will stay shiny other than the dust for many many years it's an amazing product we use it on every time we do a preservation project because of the quality of this product now we buy the product uh but we keep buying it because it's good so home depot came out and on two different days they painted half of the plane two coats next day they painted half the plane with another two coats on that side and then once that cured we put two more coats of paint on there so it's four coats of paint we put the markings on so as it sits is as close as it possibly could be back to its original 1944 1945 when it was general ira akers personal transport plane so it was an amazing project we had 70 home depot people come out rollers home depot home depot supplied everything we needed to do this we had a barbecue we had two veterans out my very good friend colonel williams who recently passed and my other friend archie aichinson now archie was a radio operator on the b17 his b17 that uh he was on and before he was shot down the second time was built in the same factory as starduster 34 planes before this one so when we interviewed him he is actually in the radio compartment and it was as close as he will ever get to being in his own plane a 15th air force b-17 such as his he was 15th air force and this one absolutely incredible story i do have his interview i'll go ahead and post that as well uh but this plane holds some very special family memories for me so that's why i'm down here by the ball turn i wanted to show the picture of the kids and that was a long time ago but it seems like it was just yesterday from 1935 to 1945 12 731 b-17s were built and more than half of them were shot down or crashed during world war ii after the war eighteen hundred were scrapped in kingman arizona an additional twelve hundred in walnut ridge arkansas and an undocumented amount overseas that never made it back home today there are 50 surviving b-17s there are six that are air-worthy but only a handful are flying and seven of the survivors are true world war ii combat veterans okay now it's play time so if you've ever seen the movie the memphis bell or any world war ii documentary show the bombardier the navigator pilot and co-pilot always go through the crew hatch today that's what i'm doing so we're gonna go through the cruise hatch it's just gonna be like the memphis bell so here we go and that's how you do it i hope you enjoyed this episode of surviving b17s here on our youtube channel b17archeology.com three years ago this is the dvd we did when we actually preserved this particular b-17 with the help of the home depot they supplied all the pain the materials and the labor to help us paint her so if you want to check out our dvd go to our webpage b17archeology.com hit our store and you can actually find the dvd as well as some other stuff on there our next episode we will be visiting tulare california we'll be seeing preston's pride now she's an atomic veteran from 1946 operation crossroads so we'll be telling her story and please don't forget to go to our youtube channel like us and subscribe and help us out and help us preserve history so we will see you in tulare [Music] you

Channel: B-17 Archaeology

Views: 5,197

Keywords: #b17, #b-17, #history, #ww2, #wwii, #bombers, #family, #veterans, #museum, #marchairfield, #flyingfortress, #archaeology

Id: YWeTJ5t8bb8

Length: 18min 28sec (1108 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 17 2020