Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!cbnews!military
From: military@cbnews.ATT.COM (William B. Thacker)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: What was the last use of the B-17 as a warplane?
Message-ID: <5432@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 6 Apr 89 01:29:39 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 35
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: cbnews!lvc
Noone got the subject question right when I asked it two weeks ago.  One
person was pretty close.

>From the book "50th Anniversary, Boeing B-17, Flying Fortress, 1935 - 1985":

"While several of the world's air forces used B-17s after World War II,
only one, the newly-formed nation of Israel, used it as a bomber.
The delivery of four demilitarized civil B-17Gs from the U.S. was almost
a scenario out of comic opera.  Three of the four, manned by U.S. mercenary
crews, dodged U.S. officials and embargoes to reach Czechoslovakia via
Puerto Rico and the Azores.  A fourth got to the Azores but was interned there.

"The three were fitted with bomb racks and hand-swung .30-caliber guns in the
nose, waist, and tail positions -- none had their original turrets.  Loaded
with 10 500-pound bombs, they took off from Czechoslovakia for Israel on July
14, 1948, and bombed Egypt en-route.  Thereafter the three, always operating
together, went to improvised war as no U.S. B-17 ever did, even in the
Philippines.  Thanks to the short distances, ineffective fighter opposition,
the relativelylow altitudes involved, the highly effective trio often flew
as many as four 1 1/2 - hour sorties a day.

"When hostilities ended in March, 1949, the three B-17s were upgraded to World
War II standard with proper turrets and .50-caliber guns.  War with Egypt
broke out again in October, 1956, so the B-17 briefly went to war again.
They were surplused in 1958 and finally scrapped in 1961.

The reader may be interested in knowing that a B-17 at the Wright Patterson
Air Force Museum in Dayton Ohio was FLOWN IN before it was put on display.
One person that saw the plane fly in said it looked like it just came off
the assembly line.
--
Larry Cipriani, att!cbnews!lvc or lvc@cbnews.att.com