Fortresses of the 447th

Here is a listing of the Aircraft that were assigned to the 447th BG. The best practice is to go by the actual airframe numbers, rather than plane names, as crews sometimes (often) assigned their personal choice of names to the aircraft they flew whether or not that was ever painted on the plane. Later crews often renamed planes. Sometimes different names would appear on both sides of the nose (or even near the tail).

The Harvard Planes: In November, 1943, sixty-two B-17s of the 447th Bomb Group left Harvard AAB in Nebraska for a transatlantic flight to their new home at Rattlesden.

Check out the specialty pages for The Pin-Ups and The Color Collection.

After the war, a select few of the Fortresses from Rattlesden made it back to the States — known as the Kingman Planes.

Beyond that, there are some Mystery Planes among the photo archives that may or may not have ties to the 447th BG. 

 

The flight listings were derived from information on the T/O sheets, Formation charts and Load Lists, and are credited to the Pilot listed (even when an AC was aboard). These lists are NOT limited to officially credited Combat missions, and may include Aborts, returns and non-takeoff occurrences as well.