B-17 Flying Fortress "Sentimental Journey" makes a tour stop in Savannah for Memorial Day

Memorial Day honors those service men and women who gave their last full measure of devotion to preserve America, so it was particularly fitting that a B-17, the bomber that played a key role in the Allied victory in the air war with Germany during WW II, arrived here in Savannah on Friday.

Now dubbed Sentimental Journey, she is believed to be the only B-17 still flying thanks to the efforts of the Commemorative Air Force Museum, based in Arizona.

Up close, these are impressive four-engine ships that took 10 men to fly them on combat missions – two pilots, a flight engineer, a radio man, a navigator, a bombardier, a tail gunner, and three more gunners -- to man the 10 .50-caliber machine guns. Little wonder they earned the nickname the Flying Fortress. With missions as long as 11 hours, it must have been torture in the cramped quarters, particularly for tail and turret gunners curled in a fetal-like position without relief.

The B-17 was the heart of the U.S. Army’s Eighth Air Force, a force conceived, planned and organized here in Savannah before migrating to England to take on the German war machine. The planes were developed by Boeing in the 1930s and dropped more bombs than any other aircraft during World War II. Author Donald L. Miller recounted the personal stories of some of the airmen in his book, “Masters of the Air,” which was the basis of the Apple TV limited series of the same name, which aired earlier this year.

Sentimental Journey flies next to Atlanta. The visit was part of a national tour by the Commemorative Air Force (CAF) which tours classic aircraft in its effort to preserve key elements of military history. CAF is entirely self-supporting through memberships and donations.