Monday, September 16, 2019

Shoo Shoo Baby was on it's 23rd combat missions when it landed in Sweden in May 1944, after losing a 2nd engine after dropping it's bombs in Germany, in all, nine B 17s landed there that day, and Sweden traded 300 Americans for the nine B 17s


Seven of the warbirds were then transformed into passenger planes for the SILA airlines, and soon after it was one of two B-17s sold to Danish airlines, and remained in civilian service until June 1947 when it was subsequently transferred in March 1948 to the Danish Army Air Corps, flying as "Store Bjørn" 672, and in December 1949, to the Danish Naval Air Service retiring in in 1953, then it was a French mapping company's plane, and she mapped Greenland’s polar ice cap, then photographed the boundaries of French colonies in Africa and South America for the French National Geographic Institute.

Shoo Shoo Baby was stripped for parts in 1961 and abandoned in a field at an airport north of Paris. There her story would have ended. Fortunately, Paul McDuffee, the ship’s first pilot, was determined to recover the plane in which he had flown thirteen lucky missions over Germany.

In 1971 it was donated by the French govt to the USAF, disassembled, it was trucked to Frankfurt in 1972, then shipped to the U.S. With no plans to restore the bomber to flying condition, its main wing spars were cut up to ease transport. As the museum had limited funding, the B-17 remained stored in 27 crates.

It was restored later from 1978 to 1988 at Dover AFB. The nose art was repainted by it's original artist Tony Starcer

Who decided to change the name, and why, to Shoo Shoo Shoo, is a mystery, but that person should be slapped upside the head until they rethink the stupid idea

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoo_Shoo_Shoo_Baby
https://www.americanheritage.com/shoo-shoo-baby
https://www.historynet.com/baby-comes-back-a-b-17g-lands-in-sweden.htm

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