390th Memorial Museum Foundation, Inc

The roots of the museum go back nearly 70 years ago, when the 390th Bombardment Group, an Eighth Air Force B-17 Flying Fortress unit stationed in England, created a place in world history. The B-17s flown by the 390th bombed the coast of Normandy before the ground landings; cut German supply lines during the Battle of the Bulge; and dropped food supplies to the Dutch the week before V-E Day. Over 650 men sacrificed their life during the war and 731 men were captured by the Nazis and held as POWs.

The stories of these courageous men are housed in the 390th Memorial Museum. The 390th Memorial Museum, on the grounds of Pima Air & Space Museum, houses a restored B-17G, called “I’ll Be Around.” Visitors can look inside the historic aircraft and see the tight spaces the crew occupied inside a bomber that had no insulation and few safety measures. Also on display is a General Doolittle exhibit as well as the first flag flown on Utah Beach during the D-Day Invasion. The 95th Bomb Group, a sister bomb group to the 390th under the 13th Combat Wing, maintains its own memorial room in the museum.

In addition to memorabilia and artifacts, the 390th Memorial Museum houses the “Top Cover for the J Group” mural, one of the most recognized WWII paintings. The Joseph A. Moller Library inside the museum is a private research center for the Air Campaign of Central Europe. The library contains over 90,000 pages of 390th combat history and over 10,000 photographs.