Jeff Huston explains how the 5,000th Boeing B-17 to leave the firm’s Seattle factory was signed by the men and women who built her

On May 12, 1944, when the swing shift at Boeing’s Plant 2 pushed one of the 16 B-17s finished that day out of the building, it marked a unique milestone. That Flying Fortress wasn’t just the 5,000th built by the company since the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, it was also signed inside and out by the people who constructed it.