The Autognaphed Bomber

摘要

On May 12,1944, when the swing shift at Boeing's Plant 2 pushed one of the 16 B-17s finished that day out of the building, it marked a unique milestone. That Flying Fortress wasn't just the 5,000th built by the company since the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7,1941, it was also signed inside and out by the people who constructed it. The Flying Fortress in question, named 5 Grand, was covered with hundreds, possibly thousands, of signatures from the Seattle plant's employees in all the colours of the rainbow. This unplanned expression of ownership was not originally condoned by the company, but once it started both Boeing and the Army Air Forces recognised public relations gold when they saw it. Boeing was at least partly responsible, when assemblies in the workshops appeared with tags bearing the legend '5,000th Boeing-built Flying Fortress'. According to company newsletter The Boeing News the "endorsing of Five Grand did not start out as a publicity stunt. It began spontaneously and gained momentum like a prairie fire".