Boeing B-47 Stratojet - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

The B-47 is featured prominently in the 1955 film Strategic Air Command starring James Stewart. The film features good aerial footage of both the B-47 and the Convair B-36. The majority of B-47 scenes were filmed at MacDill AFB, Florida utilizing aircraft from the 306th Bombardment Wing.

The movie On the Threshold of Space (1956) has footage of a B-47E being used as a test ship in the development of a downward-firing ejection seat, with Eglin Air Force Base identified as Sovran Air Force Base.

The 1957 film, Bombers B-52 features B-47s at Castle Air Force Base, that sported the proud legend, "Home of the B-47" and a fly-over in formation, before moving to focus on the new B-52.

In the 1957 science fiction film Kronos, a B-47 is dispatched to attack the monster Kronos with a hydrogen bomb.

There is a fact based movie starring John Payne in the development of the downward firing ejection seat. It is called, "Bailout at 43,000 feet" and is of some interest.

The 1 July 1960 shoot down of an RB-47H (AF Ser. No. 53-4281) by a MiG-19 over the Barents Sea was retold by the two surviving crewmembers: Captain John R. McKone (navigator) and Capt Freeman B. Olmstead (co-pilot), in the biographical book, The Little Toy Dog by William L. White. The title refers to a small plastic toy "Snoopy" that Capt McKone carried with him, and kept during their seven months in Lubyanka prison in the Soviet Union.

A one-hour episode of the TV series Kraft Suspense Theatre, "Streetcar, Do You Read Me?" (1965), starring Martin Milner, features extensive real footage, interior and exterior scenes, of the B-47E. The fictional story depicts a mission of the 307th Bomb Wing of the Strategic Air Command.

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