American veteran's flying visit (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

American veteran's flying visit

AMERICAN veteran flyer Bob Morgan, who commanded World War II's most famous B-17 bomber, the Memphis Belle, will be a special guest at this summer's Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford.

Col Morgan was at the controls of the Eighth Air Force Flying Fortress from the time it arrived at Bassingbourn airfield, north of London, in October 1942.

Seven months later the aircraft had become the first US bomber to complete 25 wartime missions.

In the first three months, 80 per cent of Col Morgan's Bomb Group was shot down.

"That means you had breakfast with 10 men and dinner with just two of them," he said.

Though bullet-ridden and flak damaged, the Memphis Belle survived mission after mission.

Five times it had engines shot out, and once just made it back without most of its tail.

The plane and its crew were immortalised in a 1943 documentary filmed during a combat mission, and again in the 1990 feature fillm called Memphis Belle, directed by Britain's David Puttnam.

The only airworthy B-17 in the UK, Sally B, doubled as the original Flying Fortress and still carries a picture of the curvaceous Memphis Belle on her nose.

The love affair between Bob Morgan and real-life Memphis Belle Margaret Polk was the inspiration behind the naming of his aircraft.

Morgan, who will be 84 on July 31, flew every mission with a photograph of Margaret taped to the instrument panel.

He returned to the USA as a hero in 1943 but the story book romance ended after he carried out a high-profile 31-city PR tour to promote the American war effort, a campaign that included parties in Hollywood with Veronica Lake and other glamorous movie stars of the era.

The Eighth Air Force was established in January 1942, initially to operate in North Africa.

By mid-1944, the Eighth Air Force formed the greatest air armada in history with a total strength of more than 200,000 people and capable of sending 2,000 four-engined bombers and 1,000 fighters on a single mission.

The Eighth suffered about half of all US Army Air Force casualties, 47,483, including more than 26,000 who were killed.

Its aircraft flew in the Korean War, in Vietnam, during the Cold War, and played prominent roles in the Gulf War and, three years ago, in the Kosovo conflict.

Today the Eighth - which 10 years ago became part of the US Air Combat Command - is in action against terrorists in Afghanistan.