Liberty Belle B-17 bomber arrives in Georgia

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Photos of the Liberty Belle b-17 bomber.

When he was 20, Jonathan Swift flew in a B-17 over Germany on bombing runs during World War II. Swift, now 84 and living in Canton, climbed back into a B-17 on Monday.

Swift is helping promote the Liberty Belle tour. The restored bomber, which has been converted into an airborne museum, will fly out of DeKalb-Peachtree Airport on Saturday, Sunday and Feb. 21-22.

Swift, who sat in the bombadier's seat seen in this photo, specialized in the long runs, all the way to Berlin or Munich, dropping 6,000 to 8,000 pounds of bombs, then flying back to England. Fourteen hours in the air, eight of them over enemy territory, most of them in sub-zero temperature.

"That plane," Swift said the of B-17, "just had a will to live."

Nine passengers can fit on the Liberty Belle, which was also the size of the crews that Swift rode with.

The view from a side gunner's position in the Liberty Belle.

Swift talks with amateur pilot David Cox next to the Liberty Belle.

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When he was 20, Jonathan Swift flew in a B-17 over Germany on bombing runs during World War II. Swift, now 84 and living in Canton, climbed back into a B-17 on Monday.

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