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The Swoose
''The Swoose'' is a B-17D-BO Flying Fortress, USAAF Ser. No. ''40-3097'', that saw extensive use in the Southwest Pacific theatre of World War II and survived to become the oldest B-17 still intact. It is the only early "shark fin" B-17 known to exist, and the only surviving B-17 to have seen action in the 1941-42 Philippines Campaign, the first day of the United States entry into the war.[〕]
== Early history ==
The 38th of 42 B-17Ds built by Boeing, ''40-3097'' was accepted by the Army Air Corps on 25 April 1941 in Seattle, Washington. It was ferried to Hickam Field, Hawaii, 13–14 May 1941, by the 19th Bomb Group as part of a group of 21 B-17C and Ds slated to equip the 11th Bomb Group. In response to the perceived hostile activities of the Japanese military, in September 1941, the War Department sent nine B-17s based in Hawaii to Clark Field, the Philippines, assigned to the 14th Bomb Squadron, 11th Bomb Group aircraft number 21, arriving at Nichols Field; the only field besides Clark that could handle the Fortresses, on 12 September.
The Japanese surprise attacks of 8 December 1941 on military installations on Nichols Field (an auxiliary airfield just north of Clark Field) and the Philippine Islands, eight hours after the Pearl Harbor raid, caught much of the United States military on the ground and only 17 of the 35 Flying Fortresses escaped destruction. One of the survivors, ''40-3097'', named ''Ole Betsy'', was pressed into bombing duty for the next two months until newer B-17Es began to reach the Pacific in January 1942. Spare parts were scarce and ground crews patched up battle damage with parts salvaged from other destroyed aircraft. The last combat mission flown by ''40-3097'' was a raid on the east coast of Borneo on 11 January 1942, piloted by the commander of the 19th Bomb Group, Major Cecil Combs.
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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