Memphis Belle was the first official B-17 Flying Fortress to complete 25 combat missions over occupied Europe and therefore they and their aircraft got to go home to sell War Bonds. She flew out of  RAF Bassingbourn, near Royston, Hertfordshire, approximately 9 miles from the Imperial Was Museum at Duxford, Cambridgeshire.

Originally the plane was going to be called ‘Little One’, after the pilot, Captain Robert K. Morgan’s sweetheart who was a resident of Memphis, Tennessee. However, after watching the film Lady for a Night, which featured a riverboat called the ‘Memphis Belle’ the crew agreed to the name after a vote. The famous pinup drawing came from the April 1941 edition of Esquire magazine. 

Memphis Bell was actually the fourth heavy bomber to complete the task. Up until recently, the first B-17 considered to have achieved 25 missions was a B-17 called ‘Hell’s Angels’ but this name didn’t sit well the the War Department and the folks back home would probably not be happy with the name. Recent research showed that  B-17 Delta Rebel No. 2 pipped them by two weeks on 1 May 1943. Sadly Delta Rebel No. 2 was shot down on a mission to Gelsenkirchen, Germany on the 12 August 1943. Six of the crew survived as prisoners of war and four lost their lives.

Just to muddy the waters further, the first heavy bomber to complete 25 missions was not a B-17 at all. Consolidated B-24 Liberator ‘Hot Stuff’ was the actual holder of this prestigious title, gaining this on 7 February 1943, three and a half months before Memphis Belle. After a total of 31 missions the plane and crew returned to the United States to sell War Bonds on 3 May 1943. Tragically, on the same date Hot Stuff ran into bad weather and crashed into Mount Fagradalsfjall near the town of Grindavík, Iceland.

In August 2022 The Centre of Aviation Photography and a group of reenactors reconstructed actual scenes from wartime Memphis Belle photos at North Weald airfield using the Memphis Belle side of the B-17 Sally B.