8658 | Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum

Original accompanying letter reads:

"Dear Sir:

I am enclosing a photograph of a B-17 Flying Fortress that was taken in Italy in 1944.  This plane was No. 44-405 [sic] and I was the Crew Chief.

As you will see, it has a picture of FDR which was done in oil paint.  The artist was Mario Rucci, a native of Lucera in Italy.

Our engineering officer, the line chief, myself and my crew pooled our money to pay to have it done.  On Thanksgiving Day of 1944, I took a jeep and went in to bring the artist to the plane.  Thanksgiving Day was a 24 hour cessation in air activity.  I had gotten a full page photograph in color from one of the magazines of FDR and this is what the artist made the copy from except that it was enlarged about six times more or less.  I named the plane "The Big Yank".

The plane got a lot of publicity in the papers in the United States as well as air force publications.  It was the first bomber to shoot down a German Jet and the crew got two of them in a flight over Berlin.

The U.S. papers also carried stories of FDR flying over Berlin (by proxie).  After the Armistice, it was converted to a transport and we ferried 5th Army troops to Casa Blanca [sic].

The last I knew it had pontoons and was used for air to sea rescue.  There are many stories to be told about this plane.

...

Sincerely yours,

Irvin Davis

PS: My unit was the 483rd Bomb Group, 840th Bomb Squadron, AAF"

Archivist note:  "Big Yank" was a Douglas (Long Beach) B-17G-50-DL "Flying Fortress", Serial Number 44-6405 (a typo in Mr. Davis' letter incorrectly states it was 44-405) assigned to the 840th Bomb. Sq. (H), 483rd Bomb. Gp. (H), 306th Combat Wing, 5th Air Division, 15th Air Force, Mediterranean Theater of Operations.