US ARMY AIR FORCE B-17 FLYING FORTRESS Eighth AAF MEMPHIS BELLE iron-on PATCH

Description: WWII US ARMY AIR FORCE B-17 FLYING FORTRESS 8th USAAF MEMPHIS BELLE iron-on PATCHThis is a very special US ARMY AIR FORCE B-17 FLYING FORTRESS 8TH USAAF MEMPHIS BELLE iron-on PATCH. You will receive the item as shown in the first photo. Please note that there are color variations due to settings on different PCs/Monitors. The color shown on your screen may not be the true color. Personal check payment is welcomed. Memphis Belle is a Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress used during the Second World War that inspired the making of two motion pictures: a 1944 documentary film, Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress, and a 1990 Hollywood feature film, Memphis Belle. The aircraft was one of the first United States Army Air Forces B-17 heavy bombers to complete 25 combat missions. The aircraft and crew then returned to the United States to sell war bonds. In 2005, restoration began on the aircraft at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio where, from May 2018, it is on display. The aircraft was named after pilot Robert K Morgan's sweetheart, Margaret Polk, a resident of Memphis, Tennessee. Morgan originally intended to call the aircraft Little One, which was his pet name for Polk, but after Morgan and copilot Jim Verinis saw the movie Lady for a Night, in which the leading character owns a riverboat named the Memphis Belle, he proposed that name to his crew. Morgan then contacted George Petty at the offices of Esquire magazine and asked him for a pinup drawing to go with the name, which Petty supplied from the magazine's April 1941 issue. The 91st's group artist, Corporal Tony Starcer, copied the Petty girl as art on both sides of the forward fuselage, depicting her suit in blue on the aircraft's port side and in red on the starboard. The nose art later included 25 bomb shapes, one for each mission credit, and eight swastika designs, one for each German aircraft claimed shot down by the crew. Station and crew names were stenciled below station windows on the aircraft after its tour of duty was completed. The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF), informally known as the Air Force, or United States Army Air Force, was the aerial warfare service of the United States during and immediately after World War II (1939/41–1945), successor to the previous United States Army Air Corps and the direct predecessor of the United States Air Force of today, one of the five uniformed military services. The AAF was a component of the United States Army, which in 1942 was divided functionally by executive order into three autonomous forces: the Army Ground Forces, the Services of Supply (which in 1943 became the Army Service Forces), and the Army Air Forces. Each of these forces had a commanding general who reported directly to the Army Chief of Staff. The AAF administered all parts of military aviation formerly distributed among the Air Corps, General Headquarters Air Force, and the ground forces' corps area commanders, and thus became the first air organization of the U.S. Army to control its own installations and support personnel. The peak size of the AAF during the Second World War was over 2.4 million men and women in service and nearly 80,000 aircraft by 1944, and 783 domestic bases in December 1943. By "V-E Day", the Army Air Forces had 1.25 million men stationed overseas and operated from more than 1,600 airfields worldwide. The Army Air Forces was created in June 1941 to provide the air arm a greater autonomy in which to expand more efficiently, to provide a structure for the additional command echelons required by a vastly increased force, and to end an increasingly divisive administrative battle within the Army over control of aviation doctrine and organization that had been ongoing since the creation of an aviation section within the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1914. The AAF succeeded both the Air Corps, which had been the statutory military aviation branch since 1926, and the GHQ Air Force, which had been activated in 1935 to quiet the demands of airmen for an independent Air Force similar to the Royal Air Force which had already been established in the United Kingdom / Great Britain. Although other nations already had separate air forces independent of their army or navy (such as the British Royal Air Force and the German Luftwaffe), the AAF remained a part of the Army until a defense reorganization in the post-war period resulted in the passage by the United States Congress of the National Security Act of 1947 with the creation of an independent United States Air Force in September 1947. In its expansion and conduct of the war, the AAF became more than just an arm of the greater organization. By the end of World War II, the Army Air Forces had become virtually an independent service. By regulation and executive order, it was a subordinate agency of the United States Department of War (as were the Army Ground Forces and the Army Service Forces) tasked only with organizing, training, and equipping combat units, and limited in responsibility to the continental United States. In reality, Headquarters AAF controlled the conduct of all aspects of the air war in every part of the world, determining air policy and issuing orders without transmitting them through the Army Chief of Staff. This "contrast between theory and fact is...fundamental to an understanding of the AAF." On 4 January 1944, the B-24s and B-17s based in England flew their last mission as a subordinate part of VIII Bomber Command. On 22 February 1944, a massive reorganization of American airpower took place in Europe. VIII Bomber Command and Ninth Air Force were brought under control of a centralized headquarters for command and control of the United States Army Air Forces in Europe, the United States Strategic Air Forces (USSTAF). VIII Bomber Command was redesignated as Eighth Air Force, with VIII Fighter and VIII Air Support Commands being brought under the command of the redesignated Eighth Air Force. This is from where the present-day Eighth Air Force's history, lineage and honors derive. General Carl Spaatz returned to England to command the USSTAF. Major General Jimmy Doolittle relinquished command of the Fifteenth Air Force to Major General Nathan F. Twining and took over command of the Eighth Air Force from Lieutenant General Ira C. Eaker at RAF Daws Hill. Doolittle was well known to American airmen as the famous "Tokyo Raider" and former air racer. His directive was simple: 'Win the air war and isolate the battlefield'. Spaatz and Doolittle's plan was to use the US Strategic Air Forces in a series of co-ordinated raids, code-named Operation 'Argument' and supported by RAF night bombing, on the German aircraft industry at the earliest possible date. In January 1945, the Luftwaffe attempted one last major air offensive against the Allied Air Forces. Over 950 fighters had been sent west from the Eastern Front for "Operation Bodenplatte". On 1 January, the entire German fighter force in the West, comprising combat aircraft from some eleven Jagdgeschwader day fighter wings, took off and attacked 27 Allied airfields in northern France, Belgium and the southern part of the Netherlands in an attempt by the Luftwaffe to cripple Allied air forces in the Low Countries of Europe. It was a last-ditch effort to keep up the momentum of the German forces during the stagnant stage of the Battle of the Bulge (Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein). The operation was a pyrrhic success for the Luftwaffe as the losses suffered by the German air arm were irreplaceable and over 300 Luftwaffe aircraft were shot down, mostly by Allied anti-aircraft guns. The losses of the Allied Air Forces were replaced within weeks. The operation failed to achieve air superiority, even temporarily, and the German Army continued to be exposed to air attack. First seen by Allied airmen during the late summer of 1944, it wasn't until March 1945 that German jet aircraft started to attack Allied bomber formations in earnest. On 2 March, when Eighth Air Force bombers were dispatched to attack the synthetic oil refineries at Leipzig, Messerschmitt Me 262As attacked the formation near Dresden. The next day, the largest formation of German jets ever seen, most likely from the Luftwaffe's specialist 7th Fighter Wing, Jagdgeschwader 7 Nowotny, made attacks on Eighth Air Force bomber formations over Dresden and the oil targets at Essen, shooting down a total of three bombers. However, the Luftwaffe jets were simply too few and too late to have any serious effect on the Allied air armadas now sweeping over the Reich with near-impunity. A lack of fuel and available pilots for the new jets greatly reduced their effectiveness. The Me 262A was a difficult foe for the P-47s and P-51s, possessing a distinct speed advantage. Allied bomber escort fighters would fly high above the bombers – diving from this height gave them extra speed, thus reducing the speed difference. The Me 262 was also less maneuverable than the P-51 and so trained Allied pilots could turn tighter than an Me 262A. However, the only reliable way of dealing with the jets, as with the even faster Me 163B Komet rocket fighters, was to attack them on the ground and during takeoff and landing. Luftwaffe airfields that were identified as jet and rocket bases, such as Parchim and Bad Zwischenahn, were frequently bombed, and Allied fighters patrolled over the fields to attack jets trying to land. The Luftwaffe countered by installing flak alleys along the approach lines in order to protect the Me 262s from the ground and providing top cover with conventional fighters during takeoff and landing. Nevertheless, in March and April 1945, Allied fighter patrol patterns over Me 262 airfields resulted in numerous losses of jets and serious attrition of the force. On 7 April 1945, the Luftwaffe flew its most desperate and deadliest mission, with the dedicated aerial ramming unit Sonderkommando Elbe. This operation involved German pilots of the unit ramming their worn-out Bf 109Gs, each barely armed with only one MG 131 heavy machine gun and 50 rounds of ammunition, into American bombers in order to get the Allies to suspend bombing raids long enough for the Germans to make a significant amount of Me 262A jet fighters. The 8th Air Force was targeted in this operation. Fifteen Allied bombers were attacked, eight were successfully destroyed. You will receive the item as shown in the first photo. Other items in other pictures are available from my eBay Store. **IF YOU NEED ITEM OTHER THAN THE ONE IN THE 1ST PHOTO, PLEASE LET ME KNOW W/YOUR ORDER**. They will make a great addition to your SSI Shoulder Sleeve Insignia collection. You find only US Made items here, with the same LIFETIME warranty. **eBay REQUIRES ORDER BE SENT WITH TRACKING, PLEASE SELECT USPS 1ST CLASS SERVICE w/TRACKING** **eBay REQUIRES ORDER BE SENT WITH TRACKING, PLEASE SELECT USPS 1ST CLASS SERVICE w/TRACKING** We'll cover your purchase price plus shipping. FREE 30-day No-Question returnALL US-MADE PATCHES HAVE LIFETIME WARRANTYWe do not compete price with cheap import copies.Watch out for cheap import copies with cut-throat price; We beat cheap copies with Original design, US-Made Quality and customer services.Once a customer, a LIFETIME of services

Price: 14.95 USD

Location: KANDAHAR POLO CLUB

End Time: 2024-02-27T22:04:55.000Z

Shipping Cost: 3.99 USD