photo #8675008

October 1942 — a woman with a camera stood among bomber crews at RAF Polebrook. Her name was Margaret Bourke-White, already one of LIFE Magazine’s most fearless photographers — the first woman to fly on combat missions, and the first female war correspondent accredited by the U.S. Army Air Forces.That day, she climbed aboard a B-17F Flying Fortress, camera in hand, eyes bright behind her goggles. She called the plane “Flying Flit Gun.” The nickname came from a soldier’s insecticide sprayer — a symbol of swatting away danger, and maybe a wink at the bomber’s deadly precision. She personally christened it on October 1, 1942, breaking a bottle of champagne against its nose in front of the crew.For two years, that plane flew mission after mission across Europe — dodging flak, limping home through bullet holes, carrying its crew and the spirit of the woman who named it. It became a quiet legend: a fortress that lived when so many didn’t.In November 1944, the Flying Flit Gun finally returned home to the United States, paint faded, metal scarred — a survivor. But history has a cruel sense of humor. After outlasting war, it was scrapped in July 1945, melted down for parts and forgotten machinery.And yet the photograph remains. Margaret, standing on the bomber’s wing with her Rolleiflex, framed by clouds and courage — the image of a woman who took the same risks as the men she photographed.She didn’t just document war; she lived it. Her lens caught both the fury and the humanity of conflict — from the B-17s over Europe to the liberation of Buchenwald.The plane is gone. The photographer is gone. But the photograph endures — proof that sometimes, the truest survivors are the stories we capture.Would you have believed the bomber that outflew war was undone by peace?