B-17G Lady Lois flies again
Last year my wife was clearing the attic one weekend and found a large box of model aircraft which my son had built as a teenager. In the box was a copy of Warbirds magazine - a special edition featuring the B-17. I had bought the magazine for my son on a visit to Bassingbourn in the early 1990s. The highlight of the visit was a flying display by the B-17 Sally B.
While we were in the museum (housed in the former control tower) we were lucky enough to meet an elderly American gentleman who introduced himself as Bill Arthur, and who had been a B-17 pilot based at Bassingbourn during WW2. He kindly signed my son's book and I made a note of his aircraft's name - the Lady Lois.
A couple of months ago I began to consider the idea of repainting one of the Ares B-17s to give me a more unique model. After some thought the Lady Lois seemed to be the ideal choice. She had been based at Bassingbourn as part of the 324th Bombardment Squadron (91st Bomb Wing), under the command of the 1st Air Division. In addition I had a personal connection to that particular aircraft and Bassingbourn itself.
Firstly, I had met the pilot. Mr Arthur had very kindly taken the time to chat to myself and my son while we were in the museum. It was fascinating to speak to someone who had actually flown aircraft just like the Sally B, which had just competed its fly past. Having since learned that Mr Arthur passed away in 1996 I consider myself privileged to have met him on one of his visits to England.
Capt William (Bill) Arthur
Secondly I had served at Bassinbourn myself. During the 1970s the base was a British Army training depot and I did my basic training there in 1976. Although I only ever flew out of the base once, on an Army helicopter, I had come to know the airfield runways and perimeter tracks very well running around them during what seemed like endless hours of physical training and tactical exercises. When I left the regular Army Bassinbourn was my last stop to hand in my kit.
Lastly, my final posting in the Army was an attachment to RAF Brampton in Cambridgeshire. One of the buildings in the adjacent village of Brampton had been the HQ of the USAF 1st Bombardment Division (later the 1st Air Division) during WW2.
Having made the decision which aircraft to model I began to look into the history of the aircraft and crew and to determine how she would have looked in the latter half of 1944.
A brief history of the B-17G Lady Lois
U.S. Army Model B-17G-92826-R
Air Forces Serial No. 43-38220
18th August 1944
Arrived at USAF Station 121 (Bassingbourn), home of the 91st Bombardment Group, and was assigned to the 324th Bombardment Squadron.
The aircraft was marked up with the squadron code DF, and allocated the radio call letter L.
Also on the 18th August a flight crew was transferred into the 324th from the 401st Bombardment Squadron. This crew, led by Captain William (Bill) Arthur, comprised:
Pilot, Cpt William H. Arthur
Copilot, 2Lt John M. Henderson
Navigator, 1Lt Robert H. Boyd
Bombardier, 1Lt William J.Swindell
Top turret gunner/flight engineer, T/Sgt Jimmy E. Yanzick
Radio operator, T/Sgt Milton Ehrlich
Waist gunner, S/Sgt Charles E. Lee
Ball Turret gunner, S/Sgt Michael J. Sesta;
Tail gunner,S/Sgt John P. McCann.
Bill's crew were an experienced team who had trained together in the USA and who had flown 18 missions with the 401st before their transfer to the 324th.
The B-17G 43-38220 was subsequently designated as the primary aircraft for Capt Arthur and his crew and on the 26th August they flew their first mission together. The target was the synthetic oil refinery at Gelsenkirchen. On their return from the mission the crew decided to give the aircraft a name and she was henceforth to be called "Lady Lois" after Bill's wife, Lois.
For the “nose art” Bill picked out a picture for Cpl Starcer, (a talented artist who was the "nose artist” for the 91st), to paint on the aircraft. He settled on a sedately seated attractive brunette wearing a modest blue, with large white stars, two-piece bathing suit and red shoes. To the right of the girl Tony painted in large block blue letters “Lady Lois.” Now 43-38220 was not just a number.
Bill and his crew flew a total of 13 missions in Lady Lois before Bill was reassigned to the USA on the completion of his 35th mission on 15th October 1944.
The Lady Lois continued to fly however, with two further crews (during which time she was renamed "Little Jean" but retained the original nose art), and by May 1945 she had flown 74 missions over continental Europe, totalling some 535 hours flight time.
Over 190 men had flown in Lady Lois/Little Jean and, remarkably she had bought them all home safely, although a number were subsequently killed or wounded while flying in other aircraft. Not one crewmen was ever injured while flying in the Lady Lois.
Despite receiving considerable damage, mostly due to flak, on many occasions during the missions the Lady Lois was always repairable and put back into service. During her time flying with Bill Arthur the damage included engine damage on three occasions, damage to the fuel tanks, and substantial damage to the tail which required a whole new rudder assembly to be fitted before she was airworthy again. The Lady Lois was reputedly "a honey" to fly and her reliability and airworthiness was considered due to the work of the outstanding ground crew team of crew chief Sgt Luther W. Heimbaugh It was Luther's responsibility to see that she was ready for each of her missions. In reality Luther considered her to be "his plane” and he only “loaned” her for the day to the flight crews to fly their missions. Luther was assisted ably by Sgts Alvin C. Robbins, Charles P. Blauser and William J. Moore.
Colour Scheme and Markings
I could only find one photo of the Lady Lois in flight but it was enough to get me going. Photos of other aircraft from the same squadron and group gave me more details and eventually I was pretty sure that I had enough details to produce a reasonably accurate model.
I managed to find two photos of the nose art and, with the written description I was able to produce a miniature version to apply to the model.
Anyway, without further ado I present the Lady Lois...
Painting details
The model was finished in acrylic hobby paints. The first job was to over-paint the existing markings. I applied an undercoat of light grey to these areas and then used the Coat d'armes 106 Enchanted Silver to bring the aircraft back to its metal finish. The Enchanted Silver was an almost perfect match for the original metal finish, but just varying enough to give an impression of slightly different coloured panels, weathering etc.
The USAF star markings were left uncovered and I just painted very carefully around these.
The red panels were painted in with a bright red using photos for reference.
The inner upper surfaces of the engine cowlings were painted olive green. This seems to have been fairly common, as an anti-glare device I assume, on 91st Bomb Wing aircraft and appears to be the case on the photo of the Lady Lois in flight. In addition, after looking at pictures of several other aircraft, I decided to alter the colours of the propeller hubs - one was painted red, the others were left black or painted silver. I assume that, as the engines were repaired, serviced or fitted with new parts ensuring that they were the same colour was fairly low on the list of priorities
Lastly I added some soot and oil streaks across the wings, using photos of the real thing for reference, to give the appearance of an aircraft which has seen some hard work.
The 91st "A" triangles and the black squadron code DF L were done on the computer and adjusted for size before printing out on copy paper. Once fixed in position the edges were carefully painted to blend in with the model.
The serial number and radio call sign L on the tail were applied with some of the decals from the I-94 Enterprises range. A word of warning here - this was the first time I have used these decals and found them to be somewhat temperamental - not only did the decals require a long time to separate from the backing, but they were very fragile and about one in four broke up or ripped. I don't know whether it was a bad sheet or just a very old one but they decals did give me some trouble. Once in position however they did look good.
The nose art was the trickiest bit. I had two black and white pictures of the design and printed the best one out onto copy paper. I coloured it with acrylic and emulsion paints according to the description and, once it was dry, I scanned it at 600 dpi. Unfortunately when I reduced it to the correct size the image was less than 10 pixels across and came out as faint blurred blob" I enlarged it to 11 pixels across and could then at least make out the design. Unfortunately it still wasn't good enough so I ended up carefully over painting the design to make the colours visible. However, painting over the image was a lot easier than hand painting it from scratch and the finished artwork looked fine for my purposes. I also added a row of bomb/mission marks above the navigators windows to show that she had completed the first seven of her 74 missions.
And that's it. The Lady Lois is resplendent in her new colours. While I can't claim it is 100% accurate I do feel that it reflects the general appearance of the Lady Lois, and the aircraft of the 324th Bombardment Squadron, during the later part of the war. Any errors are of course mine!
Finally, a quick mention for the 91st Bomb Group web site: http://www.91stbombgroup.com/
The site is a mine of information about the 91st and its squadrons and is a very good read as well - a fitting tribute to the men of the 91st. This project could not have succeeded with the information I found there.
Max
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