[2] In 2005 restoration began on the Memphis Belle at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio where, since May 2018, it has been on display.

41-24485, was added to the USAAF inventory on 15 July 1942,[7] and delivered in September 1942 to the 91st Bombardment Group at Dow Field, Bangor, Maine.

The nose art later included 25 bomb shapes, one for each mission credit, and eight Nazi swastikas, one for each German aircraft claimed shot down by the crew.

The bomber's 25 combat missions were: Morgan's crew completed the following missions in B-17s other than the Memphis Belle: The Memphis Belle was flown back to the United States on 8 June 1943 by a composite crew chosen by the Eighth Air Force, airmen who had flown combat aboard; they were led by Capt.

A B-17E, serial number 41-2489 and nicknamed "Suzy-Q", of the 19th Bombardment Group, was the first USAAF heavy bomber in any theater to complete 25 missions (flown in the Pacific from February to October 1942) and return to the US.

It crashed in Iceland on 3 May 1943, killing the commander of all United States forces in the European Theater of Operations at the time, Lieutenant General Frank Maxwell Andrews.

[16][26] In his memoirs, Morgan claimed that during his publicity tour, he flew the Memphis Belle between the Buncombe County Courthouse and the City Hall of Asheville, North Carolina, his home town.

Morgan wrote that after leaving a local airport he decided to buzz the town, telling his copilot, Captain Verinis, "I think we'll just drive up over the city and give them a little goodbye salute".

When he observed the courthouse and the city hall (two tall buildings that are only about 50 ft (20 m) apart) dead ahead, he lowered his left wing in a 60 degree bank and flew between the structures.

Eventually, no instruments were left in the cockpit, and virtually every removable piece of the B-17's interior had been scavenged, often severing the wiring and control cables in the process.

In the early 1970s another mayor donated the historic B-17 back to the custody of the United States Air Force, but they allowed it to remain in Memphis, contingent on it being maintained.

Efforts by the locally organized Memphis Belle Memorial Association, Inc. (MBMA) saw the bomber moved to Mud Island in the Mississippi River in 1987 for display in a new pavilion with large tarp cover.

They announced plans to return the B-17 to the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB near Dayton, Ohio, after a final exhibition at an airshow in Millington, Tennessee from 30 September–2 October 2005.

In Friends Journal, the magazine of the museum's foundation, director Major General Charles D. Metcalf, USAF (Ret), stated that it might take eight to 10 years to fully restore the bomber.

It is part of the USAAC World War II Memorial Flight and makes dozens of appearances across the United Kingdom and Northern Europe.

In addition to the airworthy B-17s used for the taxiing and flying sequences, others were used as background aircraft for scenes shot at the film's airbase; these were not used to portray the Memphis Belle.