"Hell's Angels"

The B-17 named Hell's Angels, serial 41-24577, finished 25 missions on May 13, 1943, six days before the Memphis Belle did, and the Air Force counts it as the Eighth Air Force's first. Another bomber, Delta Rebel 2, reached 25 twelve days earlier, so first is contested. The 303rd also made the first American heavy-bomber attack on a German target, at Wilhelmshaven on January 27, 1943, and earned a Distinguished Unit Citation for Oschersleben in January 1944 when fighter cover failed to arrive. It lost 165 aircraft, over five times its authorized thirty.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Spring Street Museum — 4.0 mi
  An 1866 bank building downtown that also held a Freedman's Savings and Trust branch in 1870, now a free LSUS-run museum with a Victorian parlor and the original vault.
• Shreveport Municipal Auditorium — 4.2 mi
  The Art Deco hall of 1929 where the Louisiana Hayride went out over KWKH from 1948 to 1960 and where Elvis Presley first played Shreveport on October 16, 1954.
• Shreveport Water Works Museum — 4.4 mi
  An 1887 brick pumping station on McNeill Street where Worthington steam pumps ran until 1980, now a free museum and a National Historic Landmark.
• R. W. Norton Art Gallery — 5.0 mi
  A free art museum and 40 acres of azalea gardens in Shreveport, founded in 1946 on Rodessa oil money, with Remington and Russell, an Audubon folio and no photography allowed.

More markers nearby

• Linebacker II (The Christmas Bombings) — steps away
• 1st CEVG Combat Skyspot Memorial — 0.3 mi
• Bowling at Holiday Lanes — 1.0 mi
• Fort Humbug — 2.6 mi