In 1943, the crew of a B-17 based in the UK prepares for its 25th and final bombing mission over Germany before returning home to the USA. It's May 1943 at a US Army Air Corps base in England. The four officers and six enlisted men of the Memphis Belle - a B-17 bomber so nicknamed for the girlfriend of its stern and stoic captain, Dennis Dearborn - will soon start their twenty-fifth mission, having completed their previous twenty-four successfully with nary an incident, while fewer and fewer other planes are coming back from their missions at all. If they complete their next mission successfully, they will be the first Army Air Corps B-17 Crew to complete their tour of duty. Visiting communications officer Lt. Col. Bruce Derringer wants to publicize and highly tout their accomplishment, even before it happens, as a long term good news campaign at a time when there is little good news to report. Derringer's plan is against the wishes of the base commander, Col. Craig Harriman, who would prefer to treat the ten as any of his other hard working men. The previous success of the Memphis Belle is despite the disparate natures of the ten men, whose personalities and backgrounds could not be more different. Each of the ten has a differing view of Derringer's publicity campaign as well as to the probable success or failure of what will be their last mission regardless, a dangerous one into enemy territory over the skies of Bremen, Germany. —Huggo 1943. The air war over Germany is at its zenith. In the 8th Air Force is a B-17 bomber whose crew are about to complete their 25th mission, the first to do so. After this mission they will be rotated back to the US on a marketing drive. However, their 25th mission is far from a milk run and they will need all the skill and luck they can muster to back it back alive. —grantss The "Memphis Belle" is a World War II bomber, piloted by a young crew on dangerous bombing raids into Europe. The crew only have to make one more bombing raid before they have finished their duty and can go home. In the briefing before their last flight, the crew discover that the target for the day is Bremen, a heavily-defended town that invariably causes many Allied casualties. —Murray Chapman <muzzle@cs.uq.oz.au> It's May 17, 1943; the day before the Memphis Belle's, a B-17 bomber, 25th and final mission. After their final mission, they crew of ten men get to go home. Since they would be the first crew to finish all 25 missions in the 8th Airforce, there were already plans to make the 10-man crew big stars back home for the war effort. But the mission hadn't been flown yet. With the target being Bremen (not Dresden), which was a target heavy in surface-to-air artillery, the flak wouldn't be easy to get through. With weather, nerves, and dreams all playing a part in the finishing of the mission, the crew has to become the lead plane in the squadron and get the job done of bombing a Nazi supply factory, if they get it wrong, many innocent people could be killed. —Jen Marh <nhl1135@icanect.net>
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