The story of Miss Ouachita

Contents: Crew Colors and markings Modeling the plane 91st Bomb Group Web Site Print this page.

The aircraft is a B-17 F-20-DL serial number 423040, coded OR * Q and belonged to the 91st Bomber Group which was based at Bassingbourne. Miss Ouachita is one of the 605 B-17Fs that were built by Douglas at their Long Beach plant. The airplane cost $357,655.00 at that time to purchase.

It is a late F with the enlarged side windows with .50 cal machine guns mounted. It also has the reinforced single .50 cal Machine gun mount in the nose glazing.

On 21 February 1944, 861 heavy bombers were on their way to bomb Luftwaffe airfields inside Germany. Miss Ouachita was one of them. The crew used the plane as a spare aircraft this day and their target was the Guetersloh airfield.

Crew:

Pilot; 2nd LT Spencer K Osterberg Co-pilot; John E. Van Beran Bombardier; 2nd LT George J. Zebrowski Navigator; 2nd LT Morris J. Roy Asssistant Radio op; S/SGT Samuel P Aldridge Top gunner; T/SGT Lambert R. Brostrom Assistant engineer; S/SGT Alexander W. Sistowski Gunner SGT Jay J. Milewski T/SGT Harold Klem S/SGT Clayton E. Morningstar

On the way to the target Miss Ouachita got outside the cover of the formation because the crew didn't notice a turn in time to correct it. They tried to get back into formation when they were pounced on several times by German fighters. The top turret gunner Brostrom did shoot down one fighter before getting killed. The fighters kept on pounding the B-17 and scored several hits in the tail section, radio room and the oxygen tanks. Klem and Morningstar bailed out west of Hannover and were captured by the Volks Sturm.

Without oxygen Osterberg couldn't hold the altitude so he headed down to a cloud bank below. The German fighters strafed the plane once more before it could get into the clouds. After getting out of the clouds the B-17 flew as close to the ground as possible. Unfortunately they came over a German airfield at Dreierwalde and the German aircraft scrambled. Van Beran got killed during one of the attacks so Osterberg decided to crash land the aircraft.

It came down at 15.27PM at Bexten not far from Salzberg. The remaining crew did not manage to set the plane on fire before being taken prisoners.

A German salvage team considered the aircraft repairable and began to retrieve it. They had just finished removing the guns when Allied fighters found the aircraft and strafed it until it was set on fire. The remains were broken down and sent to Germany as scrap metal.

The pilot who claimed the victory for downing the aircraft was Major Heinz Baer. There are several photos of him and Leo Schuhmacher examining the wreck before it was strafed.

Colors and markings

The aircraft was painted in the regular Olive Drab upper surface and Neutral Gray lower surface. Looking at the photos, the fin seems to be in a darker color than the rest of the aircraft. This could be in either one of three possible colors. a) fresh Olive Drab, b) Insignia Red or c) Medium Green. The possibility for the paint to be fresh olive drab seems unlikely because it is such a large area and the application seems to be too well done to be a repair. There has been some published pictures of 91st BG planes with the mid part painted red but I haven't been able to confirm the real use of red during the spring of -44. The common practice of having the mid part of the fin painted in Medium Green seems to me be the most logical color.

The serial (23040) is in yellow and painted on the fin. Stars and Bars are painted in the usual four positions. The Stars and Bars seems to be modified. It seems to have started as a Stars and Bars with red surround to a Stars and Bars with a blue surround. The blue circle is much lighter and more faded than the blue on the surround.

The BG marking on the fin is a white rectangle with the letter A. The white triangle marks it as belonging to the 1st Combat Bomb Wing. The letter A marks which group within the wing. The Letter a is either painted in black or insignia blue. It is almost impossible to tell what color was used, but the most common the spring of -44 was insignia blue. The BG triangle and letter was also carried on the Starboard wing.

Markings are the Squadron code letters OR (323 Sqn) and Q in light gray. OR is painted on the fuselage behind the waist gunners windows and the individual letter Q is painted below the serial number on the fin.

The nose art is a sitting lady with a banner reading "MISS OUACHITA" behind her. The girl is very well done and detailed. She is wearing a blue swim suit and high heel shoes in the same color. She is painted between the front perspex and the large side window on the port side.

There are two names written below the cockpit windows. The starboard name seems to be "Dorothy" and the port side name seems to be "Lou". Below the port large front window there is a third name, probably "Cid". It does not have any mission markings.

Modelling the B-17 F

The model I am using for this aircraft is the Monogram 1/48 B-17 G. This means that I will have to do some modifications and conversions to get it backdated to an F. Yes, I know that Revell has a B-17 F in 1/48 but the Monogram is better regarding details and accuracy. As the Monogram features raised panel lines and I like engraved, I had to engrave the panels on the whole aircraft. I used the kits panel lines as a guide.

The forward fuselage has to be modified by cutting of the chin turret and fill the empty space with plastic card. The bulged windows from the G has to be replaced with flush ones. This means that I will have to vac form new windows. The placement of the windows are not correct for an F so I will have to move the windows as well.

The nose transparency isn't the right shape for a F. The first trial was to vac form a new nose over the Revell F-nose but it wasn't the right nose either. This is because the Revell nose is an early type with two machine guns protruding. Miss Ouachita had a single .50 in the nose.

The nose and cockpit is detailed with the Verlinden conversion set. This set is to convert the Monogram to a Cheyenne turret G. This means that some minor alterations to the parts had to be done. It contains some very nice .50 cal Machine guns. The conversion contains a whole bunch of nice stuff. A complete Norden bombsight, superchargers with photo etch, photo etched window framing. Unfortunately there are new main landing gear legs which are as short as the kit legs. This does mean that you are getting a real squatter when using them. This will be quite ok if you are modeling a fully loaded aircraft. The Verlinden has a new tail wheel which replaces the totally inaccurate one in the Monogram kit.

Squadron makes a very nice canopy set for the B-17 G. It has the G type nose, astrodome, Top turret, radio compartment and rear turret clear parts to replace the kit items.

Paragon makes a B-17 crew access door set in resin. It contains the tail gunners access door, the rear crew access door, the front access door and the door in the ball turret.

The fuselage does have a very strange bomb door outline. It is wrong and does need to be rescribed further out to look like the real thing. The "Sally B" has a strip which looks like the one found in the kit so the error might originate from there.

The waist guns are wrong for a F. The F had sliding panels instead of the fixed glass windows found on Gs. This is easy to correct as it only needs a thin plasticard on the top and two small fillets at the bottom corners.

The wings have 12 (6 each wing) air intakes which have a fine mesh. This was installed on the model using 80 gauge fine brass mesh. The intakes on the nacelles were opened and the molded superchargers were cut out. I glued plastic card from the inside in each opening as a backing for the resin superchargers that come with the Verlinden conversion.

The main gear legs are mounted in part 30. This part can be modified to get a better ground clearance. Cut of the tube for the oleo leg and glue it on the opposite side. Trim the tube down about 2 mm and the aircraft will look better when parked.

I bought the detailed and bulged bulged wheels from True Details.

/Erik Lind

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