Memphis Belle by Schiffer?

During the 305th BG's reunion in Dayton last week, I have several trips into the USAF Museum in Dayton, and found myself wandering thru their shop. I think I saw in a glass case displayed all on its own, a copy of a book by Schiffer? on the well widely written subject of MB. I'm guessing they have this because they now have the original ship in their care, and currently under restoration. For some reason it was displayed on its own in a glass case and not on the main book shelves.
 
Would appreciate anyone confirming that I didnt see a mirage (!) and this was on display. Whilst not my immediate subject, it looked a sizeable book (in the tradition of Schiffer). Is it an old publication? or something brand new?
 
Ian W

Ian White - 305th BGMA Hon. Life Associate, UK Contact and Organiser of next years 40th Combat Wing UK Reunion - May 21st-31st 2009

Hey Ian,
 
You are most probably referring to the book Schiffer published about 5 years ago on the Memphis Belle.  I do have a copy of that book, but the author escapes me at the moment.  It is a very well written book describing in great detail all the Memphis Belle missions.  Many pictures support the text and they have included diagrams of all pilots that flew in each mission, and their relative position in the mission.  I was fortunate enough to have Robert Morgan sign my copy, and it occupies a prominant position in my 8th Air Force library!  I would absolutely recommend this book to you!
 
My best,  Mike

. . ." The most valuable aspect of studying and collecting AAF memorabilia is the memory of the veterans who wore it."

The book you are refering to is ‘Colonel’ Brent William Perkins’ 2002 book Memphis Belle - Biography of a B-17 Flying Fortress which can only be described as being only marginally acceptable in places. This was one of the many publications myself and Dr Harry Friedman, my co-author investigated when we were preparing our own Memphis Belle - Dispelling the Myths, which is scheduled for publication in 2008. Sadly, in Perkins’ work there is no bibliography, so we are unable to ascertain the provenence of much of his information. Nor does the work contain any form of index, which makes using the book as a work of reference very difficult. There are also a myriad of glaringly obvious errors. For example, there are a number of what can only be called ‘mis-interpretations’ of airfield place-names - ‘Polegate’ should read ‘Polebrook’ as anyone that that has only a passing interest in the Eighth Air Force during World War Two would know!
It also has far too many items that have no pertinence to the story whatsoever. For instance, there is the matter of how Perkins handles the story of Major Glenn Miller. Firstly, one has to query the relevance of including anything about the American bandleader in a book about the Memphis Belle, for the aircraft and its crew had returned to the USA just about a year to the day before Glenn Miller set foot on English soil. Nevertheless, on page 33 Perkins has a photograph of the famous musician with a caption that says ‘Glenn Miller and his orchestra at Station 121 (the USAAF designation for the airfield at Bassingbourn) five days before his disappearance’. There are two contentious things about that caption and one with the picture itself. Clearly taken in a hangar somewhere, the background of the picture shows the characteristic vertical ‘ripples’ of a corrugated iron sheet-clad building - which proves it cannot be at Bassingbourn, for ALL of the hangars there are brick-built! Miller disappeared on December 15 1944. If the caption in the Perkins book is to be believed, then the date is December 10th. The only known events and performances Miller had close to that date was on December 6th when he was recording at the Abbey Road Studios in London. Then, on December 12th, Miller and the Band performed at the Queensbury All Services Club in Old Compton Street, London. The biggest, most glaring error of all though, is that neither Glenn Miller nor his full band EVER performed at Bassingbourn! This picture does however appear in another book - and appears to have been taken close to Bassingbourn airfield. It is shown in an enlarged, more complete form on page 123 of Chris Wray’s Glenn Miller in Britain Then and Now. Wray is very specific about the date and location - Friday afternoon, August 14th 1944 at nearby Steeple Morden, then home of the 355th Fighter Group, where 91st Bomb Group photographer Joe Harlick almost certainly took the picture!
These and other such obvious ‘errors’ are consistent with other so-called ‘historical works’ relating to the overall Memphis Belle story. They force one to question the standard of accuracy of the remainder of the information in Perkins’ book and therefore devalue all within, for if the author can make such a simple ‘mistakes’, what else is wrong also?
In fairness to Perkins though, it is quite possible that he was only repeating what had previously appeared in Marion Havelaar’s 1995 The Ragged Irregulars of Bassingbourn - the 91st Bombardment Group in World War Two, which was also published by Schiffer Military History, for the same picture appears on page 83 of this book. Indeed, in this publication the picture is credited to 91st Bomb Group photographer Joe Harlick.

Graham M Simons
67 Pyhill, Bretton
Peterborough
England
PE3 8QQ

Graham,
     Can you tell us any more about your own upcoming book?  Who it's being published by, when it might be available, probable length, scope, etc? 
   I'm delighted that it will have an Index, too!
      I'm sure I join others who are looking forward to its publication.
Hugh

If you are writing a book then you obviously must be good at research. I'm trying to find out more about my grandfather.   He was a gunner on a B-17 in WWII.   Verbally from him before he passed we know he flew 26 missions as a waist gunner.   At least one of these was to Schweinfurt.  I have his discharge papers, but they show he was discharged from the 3704th AAF Base unit.  I assume this was where he was reassigned and then discharged from.  Do you know how I could find out where he was assigned during the war?  I know it must have been the 8th Airforce, but that's all I have.  Is there anything else that would be helpful on his discharge papers?

Mike B-17 Pilot... Thanks for clarifying the Schiffer edition. It seems there are indeed far more publications concerning this one historic subject than I first thought
Ian W

Ian White - 305th BGMA Hon. Life Associate, UK Contact and Organiser of next years 40th Combat Wing UK Reunion - May 21st-31st 2009

Hugh...

I'm not supposed to actively 'sell' items here as part of the rules forbid it. However, as you asked the question, I guess there is nothing wrong in answering you!

The book is going to be a hardback - at least 500 pages 297mm high by 210 mm wide and no larger than 600 pages. It will be published in 2008 by my own publishing company, GMS Enterprises. We have been specialising in historical aviation publishing, including the Airfield Focus series and distribute our work worldwide for the last 20 years. Personally, I have over 20 aviation titles to my name, both military and civil in content.

As to the scope of the book, well perhaps the preliminary 'contents page' will give you some idea.

Introduction
Chapter 1. The Story Behind the Story
Chapter 2. 1939-1941 - The United Kingdom fights alone
Chapter 3. The Eighth Air Force and the 91st Bomb Group
Chapter 4. Airfields ‘Somewhere in England’
Chapter 5. Hard Metal, Soft Curves
Chapter 6. The Crew
Chapter 7. The Missions
Chapter 8. So Which (or Who) WAS the First?
Chapter 9. Going Home
Chapter 10. Seeing ‘Stars’
Chapter 11. The Grand Tour of America
Chapter 12. The War Department Booklet
Chapter 13. 1943 - The William Wyler Movie
Chapter 14. Training, The Smelter and the Move to Memphis
Chapter 15. Years of Peace - and Restoration
Chapter 16. 1990 - The Catherine Wyler/David Puttnam movie
Chapter 17. Whatever happened to...?
Chapter 18. And Finally...
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Index

Perhaps I can also explain a little as to how the project came about - for I would hate anyone out there to think that we - that's myself and my co-author Dr Harry Friedman - are just a pair of vulture-authors out to make money from another 91st BG story!

Dr Harry Friedman has been strongly involved with the Memphis Belle Memorial Association for many years, and I am one of the very early members of the East Anglian Aviation Society (ending up their Engineering Director) who both founded the museum set-up at Duxford here in England in the early 1970s (in conjunction with the Imperial War Museum and Cambridgeshire County Council) and created and maintain still to this day the Tower Museum at Bassingbourn.

Over the years we got to hear so many errors, inaccuracies and myths regarding that aircraft and its crew, Harry and I decided that we would see if we could separate 'fiction' from 'fact'. As authors and historians who for many years have been involved with the historical aviation movement, we looked long and hard at what had previously appeared in both print and the visual media before deciding that it simply did not do justice to the aircraft or the men involved. First was the 25 mission claim - after studying over 10,000 91st BG documents and what survives from the four individual Bomb Squadron records, we now know that the Belle was not the first - nor was Hells Angels, nor was Delta Rebel No.2! But something else also became clear - at the time, it did not MATTER which was the first!

We have copies of the aircrafts maintenance logs, Bob Morgan's Flight Records (I first started corresponding with Bob back in 1979) We have piles of letters and telegrams between Margaret Polk and Bob Morgan and stacks literally feet high of newspaper cuttings from the bond tour. We found the person who wrote the famous (or should that be infamous?) 25 Missions booklet...

We are well aware that there exists the possibility that there could be errors in these contemporary primary source records. However, if one or more record matches with the item in question then we feel by making use of this cross-checking that the likelihood of an error is remote. We have had to draw a line in the sand somewhere and use something as a baseline - that baseline was and is the correlated contemporary official records. No doubt there are people out there who will say the official records are wrong and will claim that we have got this wrong and we have got that wrong because ‘...this book published in 1984 says this’ and ‘...this book published in 1998 says that’. To those people, after all the research we have conducted, we say this - prove it to us with matching contemporary primary source documentation and we will joyfully correct the historical record. However, just to tell us ‘we are wrong’ with no contemporary proof to back up your point, is simply not good enough!

The book, as of today, is currently about 90% complete. Only yesterday I obtained the Last Will and Testament of Margaret Polk, Bob Morgan's fiance and whom the aircraft is named after - it makes VERY interesting reading and has a bearing on the story!

For those interested in the technical side, I am writing it 'straight to page' using Quark Express, so it is possible to see how it is going to look. We currently have over 1600 pictures, illustrations and maps embedded in it. We have one general proof-reader, one technical proof reader and one B-17 expert working on it in conjunction with myself and Dr Friedman..

As to the price? I have no idea, but almost certainly it will end up being a labour of love with no profit!

Graham Simons
GMS Enterprises
67 Pyhill, Bretton, Peterborough England PE3 8QQ

JRC15940...

Unfortunately I cannot help you with your quest for information, for it is outside my own frames of reference.

I am sure that there are far more knowledgeable people within this forum who are able to help you conduct research than I.

I wish you well with your endeavours!

Graham Simons
67 Pyhill, Bretton, Peterborough England PE3 8QQ

Sadly, in Perkins’ work there is no bibliography, so we are unable to ascertain the provenence of much of his information. Nor does the work contain any form of index, which makes using the book as a work of reference very difficult.

 
Another work treating the Memphis Belle with no index or bibliography: 
titled MEMPHIS BELLE
by Menno Duerksen
Published by Castle Books, Memphis, TN, 1987
ISBN 0-916693-09-0
 
This work also does not contain an index or a bibliography, which is disappointing and makes the work very difficult to use as a reference. 
                                                    Best Regards,
                                                    Blackie Bales
 
 

Graham -
I noticed Ch. 12 was the War Department Booklet ( Restricted).
I have a Copy , 1943 , and have always wanted to know more about it.
Cheers,
Mike

Blackie...

You are prefectly correct about this book and it is a problem. But in his defence, Menno's book was the first in-depth research project to make a serious attempt at trying to get to the bottom of the myths and legends. Memphis newspaperman Duerksen - who was one of the first to break the story to the world back in 1943 (the actual first reference is by an Associated Press Agency Reporter called Dixie Tighe) - did a remarkable job, given the materials on hand at the time. However, he used only the 91st Bomb Group daily logs, which subsequently have been proved to be of dubious accuracy to say the least in some areas. He also did not have access to, or possibly even realised that there were a massive amount of files here in England that could provide a different
perspective on the story. Nor did Duerksen have access to digital technology that would allow him to examine, then ‘deconstruct’ and enhance the 1943 movie frame by frame. Duerksen was also up against the Belle's pilot Bob Morgan who, for whatever reasons in 1986, was sticking to the forty-year old storyline as published in the 1943 War Department booklet ‘25 Missions’. Bob Morgan was doing all that he could at the time to persuade Menno not to investigate in any great depth who did what, where and when back in 1942-3!

Incidentally, we have correspondence between Menno and 8th Air Force historian Roger Freeman that will appear in our book and will shed a whole new light on 'The Mighty Eighth' trilogy!

Graham M Simons

Mike...

That small booklet produced by the US War Department - and the 1943 so-called 'documentary' by Hollywood film director William Wyler - have proved to be two of the four cornerstones of the myriad of myths and legends surrounding the 'Memphis Belle' and her crew.

Over the years the few journalists who bothered to look at the War Department booklet have mis-quoted it. Other journalists and authors who attempted to tell the story later have picked up, re-used and re-mis-quoted the mis-quotes - or wrote a completely different story to suit their own needs.

After the Memphis Belle and crew returned to the USA, and part-way through the ‘grand tour’ the Training Aids Division published a small, 36 page booklet. It contained a Foreword by General ‘Hap’ Arnold and contained - supposedly in the General’s own words ‘...factual accounts of aerial warfare over Germany and the occupied countries’.

Despite the fact that on the front cover was printed the word ‘Restricted’, the booklet was intended to reach as wide an audience as possible; as ‘Hap’ Arnold is again supposed to have said ‘... I consider it important that the messages of these men be given maximum circulation’.

In the light of what the booklet contains when analysed, one wonders if it was intended for purely military use, or much of it was meant as propaganda to reach the wider general public!

You may notice I used the words 'supposed to have said' when referring to General Arnold. We were lucky to have been able to locate Ben J Grant before he passed away. Ben Grant was a Captain in the Training Aids Division and who in fact questioned the crew and wrote the entire booklet - mostly 'on the run' in a hotel room in Nashville!

Ben Grant told us it was thrown together in a week, before being printed in the Dayton Ohio area.

The story of the booklet, it's compilation and all the errors was just so good we had to give it a chapter by itself!

Incidentally, we also had to do the same with the 'stars, swaztikas and bomb symbols' on the nose!

Graham M Simons

Graham and all,

Thanks for your updated info on your new book!  I have heard of this publication and have a nice fat space saved for it on my bookshelf!  I have always been a 91st fan and specifically the Memphis Belle.  One can only imagine the emotion that was present in May of '43 and how we as a country were desperate for any form of new and encouraging news on the war front.  Let's face it, we hadn't the time or the inclination to put all the facts under a microscope. . .all we knew is we had some bonifide "heroes" that could foster the war effort and sensationalize the noble and grand effort the Mighty 8th was currently undertaking.  However, it is also important to now set the record straight and to understand just exactly, to the extent possible, what really happened all those years ago.  My hat is off to you and your team in your "labor of love"  It is interesting to note that I just came back from the 303rd B.G. final reunion and how understandably many of the Hell's Angel's flyers are still upset at all the "press" that the Belle received.  .  .
 
So. . .now you have some updated info for us 8th fanatics!!  I can't wait!!

Oh, I also just got back from a great visit to East Anglia (and Normandy) where I had a nice stop over in Bassingbourn.  .  .went to a hangar dance in the old 324th hangar and saw for the first time the Control Tower Museum. . .great stuff!!

My best to all,

Mike 

. . ." The most valuable aspect of studying and collecting AAF memorabilia is the memory of the veterans who wore it."

Graham -
Thanks for the Info on the Booklet.
Cheers,
Mike

Graham,
I know its a bit late but,
If you need any photos from the 1990 Memphis Belle film for your book I have plenty as I was involved in the filming,
Let me know,

Dave

As an aside to this, particularly Glenn Miller, someone may have mentioned this book previously but in case I missed it here it is:  it's entitled GLENN MILLER IN BRITAIN:  THEN AND NOW published by After the Battle (afterthebattle.com) books.  l60 pages with over 400 illustrations authored by Chris Way and authorized by Miller's son, Stephen.  Story of Miller in England from December, l944 to his disappearance.  I've only seen the book but I intend to purchase a copy--and by the way, if you're not familiar with After The Battle books, in a word they're incredible.  They ARE pricey but worth it, especially if you like photos taken during the war and what the sites look like today.  They publish a magazine, quarterly, of the same title.  Just got their most recent book on the air battle of France (Dunkirk, too) and it's 600 pages of EVERY pilot, aircraft from RAF, Luftwaffe and air forces of 3 other nations involved. Indicates the fates of pilots, burial sites (or locations on the Runnymede Memorial and even status of the planes (write off, salvages, etc.)  To me, their stuff is unsurpassed.  This may be a little off track but the Glenn Miller reference interested me and I too look forward to the Memphis Belle book.  Finally, ATB has a number of books on airfields of the 8th and 9th AF's then and now.  You should check these out.  Thanks and hope all are having a great and safe summer.
 
Lynn Robert Fairbanks
History Dept.
Paramount (CA) HS
 
son of James A. Fairbanks, 3030th BU
nephew of Jack Widener, 96th BG/337th BS

Thanks for the offer! I too was involved!

'Memphis Belle - Dispelling the Myths' FINALLY went to the printers in Kettering UK on July 4th - an appropriate date!

It will be launched - at Bassingbourn in late August - and available to everyone both in the UK and from our American distributors from September 1st - I am taking advance orders now (with free shipping if ordered and paid for my a certain date) and am happy to send anyone interested a multi-page brochure in .pdf format to anyone that is interested!

As an aside, any publicity we can get is of the greatest of use - the national and international aviation magazines just do not want to play ball it seems!

I’ve been anxious to get this book since I first heard of it. I live in the United States so how would I go about ordering the book? I’d also like very much to see your brochure. Thanks!

the easiest way to send you - any anyone else that wants a brochure (in pdf format) for Memphis Belle - Dispelling the Myths is to simply let me have your email address! The book will be available in dollars for anyone within the USA

many thanks for your interest!

My email address is: john.dell@tosoh.com
 
Thank you very much.