From having talked to both Morgan and crew members.. From time
to time crew members would swap around on different aircraft. If
the xyz ship was down with mechanicals or a crew was short a
tail gunner cause the normal crew member was out with a bad tooth
crew members got swapped around..
Morgan as well as other Belle crew, flew some of the 25 in other
aircraft. But to my knowledge they were the first to successfully
get 25 missions total each even if the Belle did not fly all 25
with them..
You need to remember this was the time frame before the long range
P-51's 47's and 38's were around.. They would typically loose 20 %
of all aircraft set out on a typical mission over Germany.. Higher
losses were occurring over high priority targets.
The Germans knew just when the short range fighters would have to
break off due to lack of fuel. They would then swarm against the
bombers until their fuel and ammo were expended. They would then
land re-fuel and re-arm to greet the bombers on the way home.
Add to that the radar accursed flak over the target and you begin
to understand why unescorted daylight bombing was a horror show of
losses. That why the Brits gave up on it so fast. And we in our
infinite bravado thought we could do it better..
It was because of the high losses that the long range fighter air
craft were rushed thru development and into production to protect
the bombers and get them through to do their job
Bob B
>From: "Jim Rice" <majrice@hotmail.com>
>To: <mil-veh@mil-veh.org> (Military Vehicles Mailing List)
>Subject: Re: [MV] "Memphis Belle"
>Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 12:22:34 CST
>
>I am taking the liberty of re-posting for the list a message Capt.
>Morgan put on the Net last >April: quote: <snip> My crew and I
>were the first to complete 25 combat missions during WWII. <snip>
>
>Not to take anything away from Bob Morgan and crew, but I recall hearing
>and
>reading on numerous occassions that the Memphis Belle was not the first to
>reach the magic number of 25 missions. There were other planes and other
>crews that did it prior to them. They were the ones singled out for the
>documentary on it and the first to get some official/unofficial recognition
>of the fact.
>
>I've also heard that they were the first complete crew and plane
>combination
>to complete 25 missions. Again, I don't think this is completely correct.
>Seems again, the film gained them the recognition as ONE OF THE EARLIEST to
>do so, but not exactly the first.
>
>Anyone else recall hearing this?
>
>Jim
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