B-17s were built in the thousands during WWII, but B-17s in any condition are rare today. Rarer still are restoration projects of the E model, an early model of World War II’s famed Flying Fortress. My Gal Sal, the best preserved and oldest ever recovered, according to salvagers, has been restored and is currently at the Blue Ash airport.

Bob Ready, the CEO of LSI Industries Inc., who has been involved in the restoration of WWII aircraft for more than 20 years, wanted to raise a forgotten B-17 bomber and display it in an Ultimate Sacrifice memorial hangar to pay tribute to the men and women who served in the USAAF during WWII.

He began his search in July 1999, when he put together a salvage team and went to Greenland where three B-17s ran out of fuel during bad weather and were forced to ditch on an ice cap above the Arctic Circle in June 1942. “Our goal was to bring home at least one of these pieces of history,” Ready said.

Ready’s team found one of them but it was torn to shreds by huge icebergs. “Due to weather, we had to cut our trip short.” Ready recalled. “It then came to our attention that another B-17 aircraft had already been salvaged from Greenland and was sitting literally in pieces in an Oregon hangar.”

That bomber known as ‘My Gal Sal,’ explained Ready, was one of the 512 E-models built by the Boeing Aircraft Corp. of Seattle in 1941. “She is the only complete combat configured E-model to survive and is one of the 40 or so left in the world,” he pointed out.

Sal was one of a flight of 13 B-17s assigned to the 342nd Squadron of the 97th Bomb Group on their way to Polebrook, England, to join the 8th Air Force when she was forced to ditch for lack of fuel in 1942.

‘My Gal Sal’ was forgotten, noted Ready, until the early summer of 1964 when it was discovered by a USAF reconnaissance flight over the Greenland ice cap. The bomber was still sitting on the surface, but years of shifting ice and hurricane type winds had broken it in two. Even after more than half a century of being in the harsh Greenland environment, Sal’s metal was in the same condition it was in when it crashed in 1942, and all the original equipment was intact inside, according to Ready.

It took almost four weeks to dismantle and fly her parts off the ice cap by helicopter. She was packed in large containers and transported by a cargo ship to the U.S. Part of the restoration took place in a West Coast shop; the rest occurred in Cincinnati. Referring to the slow, tedious work of restoring a 60-year-old  airplane that spent 53 years on an ice cap, Ready said “There is no question that our California and Cincinnati crews brought the impossible back to life by having the patience and skill to make damaged parts as good as new.”

Difficult labor intensive challenges, acknowledged Ready, were putting the cockpit, a tangled ball of metal, and the nose section back together and restoring the radio room and navigation/bombardier sections. Comparing before and after pictures of the front section of Sal, Ready said, “Truly the impossible has been performed. You have to believe in miracles. It was a wonderful feeling to see this day come.”

On March 14, 2000, Ready purchased ‘My Gal Sal’ and shipped it in sections to the Blue Ash Airport. Sal’s long trip home included transferring her to a small flat bed trailer for easier maneuvering through rural roads and finally onto a large 60-foot trailer that brought her to Cincinnati.

The final phase of restoration and detailing took place with the help of volunteers, former B-17 crew members, and General Electric engineers without whom “we would never have been able to accomplish the impossible,” Ready admitted.

In the summer of 2003 the 390th and 2nd Bomber Group reunions came to see ‘My Gal Sal’ “For me personally meeting the WWII veterans who flew and served on B-17s is the best part of this project,” Ready said. “She is being built as a symbol to pay tribute to the many people who gave their lives in WWII.”

Eventually ‘My Gal Sal’ will be the centerpiece of the Ultimate Sacrifice Memorial that will also include crew mannequins, memorabilia from the B-17 crew volunteers and personal artifacts recovered from Sal.

“I feel we need to keep the memories alive,” Ready said.