Description
Canvas or Museum Quality Paper Prints available
Print Size 33″ X 9″
Signed by the artist
Boeing B-17, Fw 190, Me 109
This image of the famous, 25 foot high by 75 foot wide mural in the World War II Gallery at the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. depicts B-17G, 42-38050, “Thunderbird” of the 303rd Bomb Group, based at Molesworth, England, as seen at 11:45 AM, 15 August 1944, over Trier, Germany, on its return flight home from a mission to Wiesbaden Germany. B-17Gs “Bonnie B”, “Special Delivery”, and “Marie”, are seen below as a Messerschmitt 109G and Focke Wulf FW 190 attack the “Thunderbird’s” element. Historian Jeff Ethell’s research for the mural revealed the names and aircraft identities of all U.S. and many German participants in this battle in which the 303rd lost nine Fortresses in this attack by Luftwaffe fighters.
“Thunderbird” continued flying with a “new crew” daily until the aircraft logged 112 bombing missions over Germany. A total of 539 crew members flew bombing missions in “Thunderbird.”
