The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress

Pilot Robert Morgan named the aircraft after his girlfriend at the time, Margaret Polk, of Memphis, TN. Morgan chose the nose artwork from a 1941 illustration in "Esquire" magazine by famous pin-up artist George Petty. She is wearing a blue outfit on the port (left) side of the aircraft and a red one on the starboard (right) side.

As the Forts return to their base, one is shown with its rudder and a good chunk of the fin blown away. In the closeups on the ground, what's left of the tail number reads backward, showing that the film for those scenes was flipped right/left. That plane is 41-9020, which was reassigned as a target tug 32 days before Memphis Belle flew her 25th mission.

All aerial combat film was exposed during air battles over enemy territory