Randy's warbird profiles: Boeing B-17G-95-DL Flying Fortress s/n 44-83785

By Randy Malmstrom

Boeing B-17G-95-DL, s/n 44-83785, constr. no. 32426, N207EV (Douglas-built, or perhaps Lockheed-Vega-built B-17G-75-VE s/n 44-85531 – because of the way data plates and serial numbers were removed during covert operations in Taiwan, the exact serial number may perhaps not be proven definitively). However, this particular aircraft is believed to be the B-17G-95-DL that was built at the Douglas plant in Long Beach, California, and delivered to the U.S. Army Air Forces late in WWII as s/n 44-83785 but did not see combat with the USAAF. Rather, it flew as a cargo and passenger transport. As a civilian aircraft, it was converted to a fire tanker.

A Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) front company called “Atlantic General Enterprises” in Washington, D.C., acquired this and other aircraft. This and four other B-17’s were sent to Western Enterprises Inc. of Taiwan and were ostensibly drafted into the Republic of China Air Force (ROCAF). Between 1954-59, these aircraft flew extensive CIA missions over the Chinese mainland as the “Black Bat Squadron," having their serial numbers and data plates removed, identified by three-digit serial numbers (this one being 639), and painted flat black. Three of these B-17’s were shot down by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. This aircraft was returned to the U.S., and in May of 1961, it was modified at Lockheed’s Burbank plant to carry the Fulton Skyhook Air Rescue System or Fulton Surface-to-Air Recovery System (STARS).

The “Fulton Skyhook,” a lift designed by Robert Edison Fulton, Jr., to extract personnel from areas that could not be reached by STOL aircraft or helicopter, consisted of a miniature helium blimp lift, one nylon harness, and one V-shaped hook on the end of an aircraft. The user on the ground would release a helium balloon trailing a long cable that was attached to a special harness he wore. The aircraft would then catch the line using long, whisker-like poles on the nose, and snatch the person off the ground, where they would be winched up and into the plane.) In 1962, this aircraft was acquired by “Intermountain Aviation,” another CIA front, but ostensibly to fight forest fires. Also in 1962, the Skyhook-equipped aircraft flew for “Operation Coldfeet” in which two CIA agents parachuted down to an unattended floating Soviet Drift Station NP8 in the Arctic Ocean, and after removing research equipment, they returned to the B-17 via a Fulton pickup. It was flown in the 1965 James Bond film “Thunderball.”

In 1975, it was acquired by Evergreen Helicopters and given the registry N207EV. It was again returned to fire-fighting, stored, and acquired by Evergreen Vintage Aircraft, Inc. (Evergreen Aviation is known to have flown missions for the CIA) and in 1985, work began on a restoration process with all the gun turrets and operational bomb bay doors for display at Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon (the story goes that the nose turret was found as a decoration in a bar, but the owner was unwilling to sell it, so Evergreen bought the bar, removed the turret, and then re-sold the bar); it flew again in 1990 and continued to do so in numerous airshows until 2001, when concerns over wing spar attachment points grounded her.

At the time of these photos, it was painted in the markings of the 490th Bomb Group operating out of Eye, Suffolk, England, during WWII. It has been referred to as “Shady Lady” because of its shrouded history. As of this writing, it is part of the Collings Foundation collection to be airworthy and was scheduled to become part of their Wings of Freedom tour, which is grounded. I am told it is to be repainted as Outhouse Mouse. My photos when it was at Evergreen, along with a few photos courtesy of Mike Walsh of it on its departure to Collings, thanks.

The “Flying Fortress” nickname was coined by Richard L. Williams, a writer and editor for the Seattle Times, when he was assigned to write a caption on a photo of the Model 299, a prototype that was unveiled at Boeing on July 17, 1935. The G variants were generally armed with 13 Browning M2 .50 caliber machine guns: twin-mounted in the Bendix electrically-powered chin turret operated by the now-known-as bombardier/toggler since he also controlled the rotating turret with a yoke or joy stick sitting on a wooden platform; single mounts on each cheek operated by the navigator and/or bombardier as needed; twin-mounted in the top electrically-powered Sperry turret; twin-mounted in the lower Sperry non-retractable ball turret; single-mounts in the left and right waist positions (by the G model, they were enclosed in Plexiglas and were staggered); and twin-mounted in the Cheyenne tail turret with hand-operated pumpkin mount (Cheyenne being the United Air Lines plant in Cheyenne, Wyoming) – earlier versions had the “Steeplechase” or “Stinger” tail gun with just a ring-and-post sight.

The ball turret gunner has gun charging handles on each side of his head, an intercom button by his left foot, foot pedals to electrically rotate the turret and adjust the azimuth, a hose to connect to his oxygen tank on the turret gimbal, and an emergency hand crank to rotate the turret in the event of a power failure. Statistically, this was not the most deadly position despite some common notions, and not all ball turret gunners were 5’4″.

A trailing antenna wire with spool and motor was used for the liaison transmitter system that was developed for communication between aircraft and the ground and designated the “BC-348-J” by the U.S. Army Signal Corps. The spool (or reel) for the antenna wire is in the waist of the fuselage on the port side in front of the waist gunner. It could carry between 4,500 and 8,000 bombs depending on the distance to target. Electrical power is supplied by a 24-volt DC system which distributes power from four engine-driven generators and from three storage batteries in the leading edges of the wing just outboard of the fuselage.

Editor’s notes: There has been some controversy regarding the identity of the B-17 Flying Fortress formerly displayed at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum. As mentioned by Randy Malmstrom, the data plates of this aircraft were removed by the CIA while the aircraft was operating out of Taiwan, but most authors have stated that it is serial number 44-83785, which was issued with the identity of 44-85531 to be less traceable.

According to the late aviation historian Joe Baugher, B-17G-95-DL construction number 32426 was built at the Douglas Aircraft Company’s plant in Long Beach, California, and was accepted into the USAAF at Long Beach as 44-83785 on June 22, 1945. On June 23, the aircraft was flown by the 6th Ferrying Group of Air Transport Command to Hill Army Airfield in Ogden, Utah, before proceeding the next day to United Air Lines Modification Center #10 at Cheyenne Municipal Airport, Wyoming. With the war in Europe having ended in May 1945, the aircraft was modified to become a transport aircraft, and between July 5/6, 1945, the aircraft was flown from Cheyenne to Hunter Field in Savannah, Georgia with a stopover in St. Louis, Missouri. On July 6, the aircraft was assigned to the 302nd Base Unit (Staging Base). The aircraft was then sent to the Seventh Air Force at Hickam Field, Hawaii, with stops in Dallas, Texas, and Long Beach, California, along its ferry flight. At Hickam, the aircraft was flown as CB-17G 44-83785 with Base Flight of the Air Depot Group of Pacific Air Command (PACAIRCOM), and later with the 6506th Air Base Group, the 1500th Air Base Group, Military Air Transport Service (MATS), and the 1500th Maintenance and Supply Group.

On September 29, 1949, CB-17G 44-83785 was assigned to the Far East Air Force at Haneda Air Base in Tokyo, Japan, before being transferred to Komaki Air Base, Nagoya, Japan. The aircraft remained in use in Japan during the Korean War, being redesignated as a VB-17G on July 16, 1951, in order to transport high-level officers. In September 1956, the aircraft was “reclaimed” at Tachikawa Air Base in Tokyo and assigned to the 34th Squadron (better known as the Black Bat Squadron) of the Republic of China Air Force (ROCAF) as tail number ‘835’ and used for agents to parachute into communist mainland China and to gather military signal intelligence. Starting on August 16, 1960, the aircraft was operated by Air America, a CIA-operated airline, and registered with the FAA as N809Z, with another CIA front, Atlantic General Enterprises, Washington, DC, being listed as the owner. 

Between October 29 to November 2, 1960, B-17 N809Z was flown from Tainan, Taiwan to Lockheed Aircraft at Burbank, California, issued the identity of B-17G 44-85531, which was built in Burbank in 1945 by Lockheed-Vega, flown as a transport at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines, and later flown by Western Enterprises, Inc, a CIA front operating out of Taiwan, with the aircraft also being said to have flown clandestine missions out of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) to drop agents into communist-occupied Tibet, and later salvaged at Clark FB in 1958. At Burbank, N809Z was fitted with the Fulton Skyhook recovery system to pick up agents on the ground while the aircraft was still flying. By May 1961, the aircraft was once more identified on record as 44-83785 and was operated by Intermountain Aviation, yet another CIA front operation.

In 1962, the Soviet research station North Pole-8 (NP-8) became unstable in the ice of the Arctic Ocean, causing the Soviet scientists to abandon the station, which was then carried away by the drifting ice flows, likely to sink into the frigid depths at any time. Upon receiving word of the Soviets abandoning NP-8, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) began planning the operation, but the CIA took over what became known as “Project COLDFEET“. The plan was for two agents to parachute onto the research station, gather any classified documents that could be found, and be extracted by the Fulton Skyhook system installed on B-17G N809Z. On May 28, 1962, U.S. Air Force Major James F. Smith, a Russian linguist with the U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Naval Reserves Lt. (j.g.) Leonard A. LeSchack, who had been an assistant seismologist with the U.S. Antarctic Expedition and had developed this mission under the ONR, parachuted from B-17G N809Z, flown by Intermountain pilots Connie Siegrist and Douglas Price. Smith and LeSchack planned to be on the ice for a 72-hour expedition, and during that time they recovered 150 pounds of classified Soviet documents, took pieces of Soviet research equipment, and took photographs of the research station. Despite plans to be picked up on June 1, heavy fog kept N809Z grounded until the following day, when the two men and the intel that they gathered were successfully extracted from the Arctic Ocean, giving U.S. intelligence a valuable insight into Soviet Arctic expeditions. More on that mission through these links HERE and HERE.

In 2015, B-17G N207EV was purchased from the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum by the Collings Foundation based in Stow, Massachusetts. After an additional two years of being on display at Evergreen, B-17G N207EV was brought to nearby McMinnville Municipal Airport in August 2017 and flown to American Aero Services in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, a restoration workshop with a long history of working with the Collings Foundation. With the tragic loss of B-17G 44-83575/N93012 “Nine-O-Nine” on October 2, 2019, work on B-17G N207EV has been on hold, and the aircraft remains in storage at New Smyrna Beach.

About the author 

Randy Malmstrom grew up in a family steeped in aviation culture. His father, Bob, was still a cadet in training with the USAAF at the end of WWII but did serve in Germany during the U.S. occupation in the immediate post-war period, where he had the opportunity to fly in a wide variety of types that flew in WWII. After returning to the States, Bob became a multi-engine aircraft sales manager and, as such, flew a wide variety of aircraft; Randy frequently accompanied him on these flights. Furthermore, Randy's cousin, Einar Axel Malmstrom, flew P-47 Thunderbolts with the 356th FG from RAF Martlesham Heath. He was commanding this unit at the time he was shot down over France on April 24th, 1944, and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner of war. Following his repatriation at war's end, Einar continued his military service, attaining the rank of Colonel. He was serving as Deputy Wing Commander of the 407th Strategic Fighter Wing at Great Falls AFB, MT, at the time of his death in a T-33 training accident on August 21, 1954. The base was renamed in his honor in October 1955 and continues to serve in the present USAF as home to the 341st Missile Wing. Randy's innate interest in history in general, and aviation history in particular, plus his educational background and passion for WWII warbirds, led him down his current path of capturing detailed aircraft walk-around photos and in-depth airframe histories, recording a precise description of a particular aircraft in all aspects.