The second annual Flying Fortress 5K is to benefit the restoration of the Museum's B-17, the "City of Savannah". The 5K (3.1 mile) course will make its way through the campus of JCB, Inc., starting and finishing at the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum.

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More than just a Teddy Bear - this cuddly critter has earned his wings and comes complete with his own flight goggles, scarf, and removable bomber jacket, leather flight helmet, and Top Gun t-shirt.

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Summer Camp at the Mighty Eighth closed for the season with a half day camp. Campers enjoyed time outside learning about how members of the Eighth AF and RAF sometimes had to parachute out of damaged planes and land in what was often Nazi Occupied Territory.  These downed airmen sometimes were able to Escape and Evade the Germans with help from European locals. To help recreate this experience, campers did escape and evasion maneuvers in the Memorial Gardens located behind the museum.  They read clues and used maps of the garden to try to make their way to freedom in "Allied" territory.  This activity really helped the campers understand what Escape and Evasion through Europe during WWII entailed and the difficulties faced by these downed airmen.  

Keep the Legacy Alive, Remember us in your will

Jaime Hanna

Character Counts!

Museum Educator

The Mighty Eighth's Education Department would like to welcome Jaime Hanna.  Jaime will be highly involved with the museum's Character Counts! education program within the museum and the Savannah Chatham County Public School System.  She will help expand the Character Counts! program as well as assist with tours and many other museum education programs.  

Restoration Project Update

Franz "Stoney" Stone was born in New Haven, Connecticut and raised in Massachusetts and Columbus, Ohio.  After high school he began working in a factory manufacturing parts for automation machinery for companies such as Curtis Wright and North American Aviation.  He would continue in the automation machinery factory business for the rest of his career while later starting his own company Rimrock Corporation manufacturing robots.  For a four year period he served in the Navy and Naval Reserve in Columbus, Ohio as a Link Trainer instructor.  Stoney learned to fly at the age of seven when his father flew them to Los Angeles in his small plane.  He earned his pilot's license around 1950.  He has bought airplanes and made home built airplanes from India, South America and Europe.  Stoney and his wife Sally married in Paris. Sally is an interior designer and loves old houses so the couple moved to Savannah over fifteen years ago.  One day just after the museum opened, Stoney came into the museum and asked if he could help. He has enjoyed volunteering at the mission experience ever since. 

Teri Bell

MISS SOPHIE: Family time a life saver 

Teri Bell is the co-owner of Miss Sophie's Marketplace at the Mighty Eighth in Pooler. Go to www.sophiesmarketplace.com.

While serving as a gunner in the 388th Bombardment Group (H), Louis Allen often wore his leather A-2 jacket decorated with a rendition of Miss Fortune.  Recently donated to the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum by the 388th BGA, Inc., this jacket and James Morrow's book, Return Engagement, will soon be on display in the 388th Bomb Group's case located in the Honoring the Eighth Gallery.

In 1943 Louis Allen (1923-2000) enlisted in the Army Air Force and trained as   an armorer and gunner.  Then in September 1943 he began B-17 Phase Training as a member of the Philip Hiden crew.  In mid-November 1943 this crew flew a new B-17 Flying Fortress to England.  At the 12th Replacement Control Depot located in Stone, England, the Hiden crew received their assignment to the 388th Bomb Group, 560th Bomb Squadron.  Here the crew was broken up, and the men flew as replacements on other crews.  Louis completed twenty-five combat missions between 6 March 1944 and 14 April 1945.  He flew with a number of different crews sometimes as waist gunner and sometimes as ball turret gunner on at least fifteen different B-17s.   His A-2 jacket reflects the fact that he flew more missions on the B-17 Miss Fortune than on any other Flying Fortress.  

The Tripartite Pact 1940 

By Museum Volunteer Gary Silver                                                                                       

On September 27, 1940 in Berlin, Japan, Germany, and Italy signed the Tripartite Pact which established the core group of the Axis Powers of World War II.  The agreement was signed by Adolph Hitler, Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano of Italy, and Ambassador Saburo Kurusu of Japan.  It provided that a military attack on any member of the new Axis triumvirate by any nation not then engaged in either the European or the Sino-Japanese war would invoke the political, economic, and military assistance of the other two.

The negotiation of Tripartite happened to coincide with Hitler's decision to postpone the invasion of Great Britain, and many believed it was timed, in part, to redirect attention away from that botched campaign and signal Germany's intentions toward the United States.  Correspondent William L. Shirer, reporting from Berlin when the pact was signed, wrote, "... this Tripartite Pact is a thing the Axis powers and especially Germany can ballyhoo to the skies, thus taking people's minds off the fact that the promised invasion of England isn't coming off and that the war - which every German confidently expected since mid-summer would be over in a month or two - isn't going to end before winter comes, after all." [Shirer, Berlin Diary, p.536]

Although the U.S. was not named in the agreement, Shirer, in his radio broadcast on the day the pact was signed, said, "...there is no attempt in informed circles here tonight to disguise the fact that the military alliance signed in Berlin today ... has one great country in mind.  That country is the United States." [Shirer,Berlin Diary, p.533]  The Pact gave Germany and Italy a much freer hand to endorse Japanese aggression in the western Pacific, at the same time securing at least a paper promise that Japan would attack the United States if the United States attacked German or Italian forces in the eastern Atlantic theater.  It was Hitler's hope that the Tripartite would be seen as a threat to the United States, and keep her out of the European war and away from all-out preparations for war until Germany had completed its conquest of Europe.  "This was the main task of the German Embassy in Washington, which went to great lengths, including the bribing of congressmen, attempting to subsidize writers and aiding the America First Committee, to support American isolationists and thus help to keep America from joining Germany's enemies in the war." [Shirer, Rise and Fall... p.871, 874]

 Read Further

Flying bombing missions out of their base at Tibenham, England, during World War II, the 445th Bombardment Group (H), 2nd Air Division, flew B-24 Liberators deep into Nazi-held Europe.  The 700th, 701st, 702nd, and 703rd Bombardment Squadrons (H) were assigned to the group and all were supported by superior ground personnel.

The 445th Bomb Group flew 280 missions and 6,323 sorties from 13 December 1943 to 25 April 1945.  They lost a total of 138 aircraft but were never stood down.  On 24 February 1944, the 445th together with other bomb groups of the 2nd Air Division participated in an attack on the Gothaer Waggonfabrik, A.G. located at Gotha, Germany, a manufacturing site for ME 110s.  The 445th Bomb Group received the Presidential Unit Citation for action on this mission.  They successfully located the target and, bombing with extreme accuracy and devastating results, they dealt the Luftwaffe a most telling blow.

On 27 September 1944, the 445th suffered the greatest loss by one group on a single mission of the Eighth Air Force.  With Kassel, Germany as their assigned target, 37 B-24s took off from Tibenham.  They never reached Kassel, dropping their bombs near Gottingen, approximately thirty miles northeast of Kassel.  Having left the main bomber stream, the planes of the 445th were isolated.  They were attacked by more than 100 German fighters losing 25 aircrews and airplanes.  The next day on 28 September 1944, ten B-24s from the 445th Bomb Group successfully dropped their bombs on the Kassel target and returned to Tibenham.

Four decades later, the Kassel Mission Memorial Association was formed.  Today the Kassel Mission Historical Society in collaboration with their former German foes continues to honor airmen of both countries who were killed in action on that fateful Kassel mission day.

New Mighty Eighth Tuesday Trivia Giveaways! Every Tuesday we will ask a Mighty 8th trivia question on the Mighty Eighth's Facebook wall, please submit your answers to [email protected]. A winner will be randomly selected and announced Wednesday morning.