One of the worst days of the war for the B-17 and its crewmen was the second raid on German ball bearing production in Schweinfurt, Germany on October 14, 1943. B-17s flown by the Eighth saw some of the fiercest combat of the war.Īs the Americans flew further into Europe and Germany, the missions became deadlier. While the US Fifteenth Air Force also had B-17s, the most famous group to fly them during the war was the US Eighth Air Force based out of England. American bomber numbers continued to build in Europe and attacks (and losses) began to build up. The first B-17 raid in Europe took place on August 17, 1942, when 12 planes attacked the railroad marshaling yards in Rouen, France. 50 caliber M2 Browning machine guns for protection, and had a legendary toughness for carrying its crew home on one engine or even with the tail shot away. Its famous nickname came from the fact it carried 13. It had a crew of ten and could carry 6,000 pounds of bombs at 300 miles per hour for a range of 2,000 miles. It was a four engine, heavy bomber which first flew on July 28, 1935. In theory, in the words of British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, the “bomber will always get through.” The Americans believed the B-17, with the Norden bomb sight, could be that bomber. In years following World War I, the United States was heavily influenced by Italian air-power theorist Giulio Douhet who called for heavy investment in a force of bombers to fly over the front-lines, destroy an enemy’s infrastructure, and break their will to fight. That aircraft was the Boeing B-17, better known as the “Flying Fortress”. They also believed they had an aircraft which could fight its way in and out of the target area, unescorted, and return home safely. The Americans, on the other hand, were proponents of daylight, precision bombing using their state-of-the-art and top-secret Norden bomb-sight. The British had been bombing from the air, but heavy losses forced them to switch to nighttime area bombing, greatly reducing its effectiveness. The problem was there was no easy way to hit Germany, as a cross-channel invasion of Europe was still years away. Gift of Peggy Wallace, 2010.308.082Įven though it was the Japanese who attacked the Americans at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the official policy of the United States and its allies was to defeat Germany first. Top Image: Close-up of a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber in flight, 1944-45.

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