The Swoose (B-17)
| "The Swoose" | |
|---|---|
 |
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| "The Swoose" in bare metal finish, 1944 | |
| Type | Boeing B-17D-BO Flying Fortress |
| Manufacturer | Boeing Airplane Company |
| Serial | 40-3097 |
| Owners and operators | USAF |
| In service | 25 April 1941 to February 1944 |
| Preserved at | Preserved and under restoration at the National Museum of the United States Air Force |
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, operating on the first day of the United States entry into the war.
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 with hand-picked crews from their base in Hawaii Clark Field, the Philippines, assigning them to the 14th Bombardment Squadron, detached from the 11th Bomb Group. B-17 40-3097, then designated aircraft number 21, arrived at Nichols Field, (a fighter airfield just south of Manila and the only other than Clark among the Army's four active airfields that could handle the Fortresses) on 12 September in the midst of a typhoon. On 5 December the 14th Bomb Squadron was ordered to move its eight B-17s to the newly established Del Monte Airfield on the island of Mindanao, along with the eight of the 93rd Bomb Squadron, as a dispersal measure.
The Japanese surprise attacks of 8 December 1941 on military installations in the Philippine Islands, eight hours after the Pearl Harbor raid, caught much of the United States Far East Air Force on the ground and only 19 of the 35 Flying Fortresses in the Philippines escaped destruction or damage. The two squadrons sent to Del Monte, including 40-3097 (now named Ole Betsy), were pressed into bombing duty for the next two months as 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.
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