Nine-O-Nine
Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress bomber
Nine-O-Nine was a Boeing B-17G-30-BO Flying Fortress heavy bomber, of the 323d Bombardment Squadron, 91st Bombardment Group, that completed 140 combat missions during World War II, believed to be the Eighth Air Force record for most missions without loss to the crews that flew it. A different B-17G, painted to mimic the Nine-O-Nine, crashed at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, in October 2019.
Service history
The original aircraft, from a group of 30 B-17Gs manufactured by Boeing, was nicknamed after the last three digits of its serial number: 42-31909. Nine-O-Nine was added to the USAAF inventory on December 15, 1943, and flown overseas on February 5, 1944. After depot modifications, it was delivered to the 91st BG at RAF Bassingbourn, England, on February 24, 1944, as a replacement aircraft, one of the last B-17s received in factory-applied camouflage paint.
A former navigator of the 91st BG, Marion Havelaar, reported in his history of the group that Nine-O-Nine completed either 126 or 132 consecutive missions without aborting for mechanical reasons, also believed to be a record. M/Sgt. Rollin L. Davis, maintenance line chief of the bomber, received the Bronze Star for his role in achieving the record.
The aircraft's first use in a bombing raid was over Augsburg, Germany, on February 25, 1944. It was used for 18 bombing raids on Berlin.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Nine-O-Nine” as boeing B-17G Flying Fortress bomber. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as boeing B-17G Flying Fortress bomber. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7038247. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2019, 1943 and 1944.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nine-O-Nine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.