The Museum has added a discounted admission rate for all active duty military and their families. 

1 Year Anniversary of the "City of Savannah" Restoration Project ~ Jan. 15, 2010 Restoration Project Update

Air Field Mural: Prelude to the Mission Experience Films

Walking from the Savannah to the U.K. exhibit to view the Mission Experience films is like stepping back in time.  You are surrounded by 1940's England and begin to feel like an 8thAF crewmember readying for a mission over Nazi-occupied Europe.   Located directly in front of you is an authentic Nissen/Quonset Hut surrounded by replica "English Mud." As you enter the exhibit to view the first Mission Experience film inside the Nissan Hut, you step onto the runway among tire tracks and oil spills.  On the walls surrounding you is a grand mural depicting a typical 8^thAF airfield in East Anglia, England.  

The English skies are dark and cloudy as "snap, crackle, pop," a B-17F model piloted by Jacob Wayne Fredericks of the 303^rd "Hell's Angels" Bombardment Group is beginning to ready for take off.  The Kellogg's company artist, Omar Cook, painted the characters onto the B-17 since Fredericks worked for the cereal company in Battle Creek, Michigan before the war.  The mural was painted by Ely Scardamalia and Patrick Dempsey of Renaissance Studios during 2004-2005 and was funded by the Fredericks family, 356^th Fighter Group and the 384^th Bombardment Group.   

The 3rd Strategic Air Depot at Watton utilized Mobile Repair Units with crews of about

15 men each who repaired damaged B-24s that had crash landed in the English countryside as well as those at 2nd AD bases.  Each Mobile Repair Unit worked out of an enclosed semi-trailer equipped with interior workbenches.  Drawers under the benches held an assortment of small tools.  In addition each MRU had an engine driven generator and a compressor as well as a 6x6 truck and sometimes a jeep. 

The tractor to move the semi-trailer had to be borrowed, however. 

Between early September 1943 and late December 1944, John Blake was stationed at 3rd SAD and traveled throughout the UK to inspect all damaged B-24s.  He determined which could be repaired, which were not repairable but had many undamaged parts that could be salvaged, and which were totally damaged with no useful salvage.  Then from January 1945 until just after V-E Day, he was on the continent conducting the same analysis on all Eighth Air Force aircraft that had crash landed behind Allied lines.  He recorded information about each aircraft he inspected in a series of notebooks.  Mr. Blake recently donated these notebooks, a series of photographs, and his manuscript personal account to the Research Center at the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum.

George and Lois Cain began volunteering at the Mighty Eighth in 2007.  George is a tour guide and also helps in the Mission.  Lois helps out whenever she can.  By the end of 2009, Lois had crocheted 2009 hats for children around the world.

The day that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, George Cain was a 10 year old farm boy in northwest Oklahoma.  He became infatuated with World War II airplanes and purchased all of Jack Armstrong's Tru-flight models of WW II aircraft which he ordered for 10 cents and a Wheaties "Breakfast of Champions" box top.  He also built many balsa wood and tissue paper models, (one of which still hangs above his computer).

George was too young to be in WW II but when the Korean War heated up he enlisted in the USAF in April 1951.  After basic training he qualified for Airframe and Engine school and was sent to Oakland, CA. On completion, George's first duty station was Lubbock AFB, TX.  At Lubbock he earned his second stripe and was promoted to Crew Chief of a T-6 Flight Trainer Aircraft, tail No 308.  He was living his dream.