Honoring a B-17 Crew Operating Over France

Noirmoutier, FranceJuly 4, 1943

Robbin F. LairdRevised May 11, 2013

B-17s Flying Over France

Photo Credit: US National Archives

The Event

• During a raid on Nazi installations in France on July 4, 1943, a crew of a B-17 in route to an attack on NAZI submarine pens, crash landed on Noirmoutier Island, France.

• All 10 crew members survived to become prisoners of the Third Reich

• The purpose of this briefing is to provide context to understand the role of the B-17 and what became known as the Mighty 8th or 8th Air Force

• And to Do So By Recovering a Sense of of What the World Was Like for a US Bomber Crew in 1943

• And along the way there are a few lessons learned then that we are learning all over again

The Crew: From 92nd BG – 407th

Bomber Squadron• JJ CAMPBELL Pilot• HV STEPHENSON Co-pilot• BA KILGROW Jr. Bombardier• BP HEREFORD Jr. Navigator• RK RASDALL Ball Gunner• RH HETRICK Top Gunner• CD CHENOWETH Radio Operator• LM ARLINGTON Left gunner• JM GUYMON Right gunner• HL BURTON Tail gunner

92d BOMBARDMENT GROUP

• Constituted as 92d Bombardment Group (Heavy) on 28 Jan 1942. Activated on I Mar 1942. Trained with B-17’s and performed antisubmarine duty.

• Moved to England, Jul-Aug 1942, and assigned to Eighth AF. Flew a few combat missions in Sep and Oct 1942, then trained replacement crews.

• Began bombardment of strategic objectives in May 1943 and engaged primarily in such operations throughout the war.

• Targets from May 1943 to Feb 1944 included shipyards at Kiel, ball-bearing plants at Schweinfurt, submarine installations at Wilhelmshaven, a tire plant at Hannover, airfields near Paris, an aircraft factory at Nantes, and a magnesium mine and reducing plant in Norway.

• Source: Air Force Combat Units of World War II, Office of Air Force History, 1983.

B-17 bomber on the Way to the UK, 1941

Hermann Goering

• Above all, I shall see to it that the enemy will not be able to drop any bombs.

• — Hermann Goering, German Air Force Minister. German original: "Vor allem werde ich dafur sorgen, dass der Feind keint Bomben werfen Kann."

• No enemy bomber can reach the Ruhr. If one reaches the Ruhr, my name is not Goering. You may call me Meyer.

• — Hermann Goering, German Air Force Minister, addressing the German Air force, September 1939.

• My Luftwaffe is invincible. . . . And so now we turn to England. How long will this one last — two, three weeks?

• — Hermann Goering, German Air Force Minister, June 1940.

The Other Goering

• “What the hell was Hermann Göring’s nephew doing piloting an American heavy bomber over Germany?” was a question military and civilian intelligence struggled with and prepared for, with extreme prejudice, if, and when the need arose.

• Werner Goering couldn’t shake reminders of his famous uncle, Hermann W. Göring, head of the Luftwaffe and Adolf Hitler’s legal successor.

• In the skies over the European theater, he did his best to reclaim the family name.• U.S. Army records confirm that Werner, a 21 year old “Mighty Eighth” Army Air Force captain in

early 1945, commanded 49 “Flying Fortress” combat missions over Nazi-occupied Europe—well beyond the 30 sorties that then constituted a squadron lead-pilot’s tour of duty.

• He could have gone home by Christmas of 1944, as most of his original crewmates did, but at the peak of the bloody air war, Werner signed on for a second tour with the British based 303rd Bombardment Group, “The Hell’s Angels,” one of America’s most storied warrior fraternities and the single most active bomber group in the Army Air Force. He fought until the bitter end—to the May 8, 1945, Nazi surrender.

• Among a fistful of other medals, he received the Distinguished Flying Cross, one of the nations’ highest military decorations, while quietly carrying the burden of his blood-soaked surname throughout the war and beyond. He battled the Nazi war machine in the war’s longest and deadliest battle for Americans, was nearly assassinated by a suspicious U.S. government, and faced the distrust of other officers.

• http://www.commandposts.com/2012/03/why-was-herman-goering%E2%80%99s-nephew-piloting-an-american-heavy-bomber-over-germany/

The Critics are Always With Us

• Upon observing an initial bombing run in August 1942, the air correspondent for the Sunday Times, Peter Masefield, wrote that “American heavy bombers are fine flying machines, but they are not suited for bombing in Europe. Their bombs and bomb loads are too small, their armor and armament are low.”

• Not content with this, he went on to advise the American leaders that their planes were better suited for ASW duty.

• Martin Bowman, B-17 Flying Fortress Units of the 8th

Air Force (Osprey Publishing, 2000).

The Feel of 1943

• America was engaged in a two front war, with the clear public priority for the war in the Pacific

• But Roosevelt agreed with Churchill that the priority was the war against the Nazi empire

• This was made possible by the improbable defeat of Japan at the Battle of Midway, 4-7 June 1942

• The other great event shaping a hope for rollback of the Axis powers was the capture of the 6th German Army at Stalingrad at the beginning of 1943

• And the surrender of the Afrika Corps in May 1943

The State of Play: 1943

• 1943 was a tough year for the Flying Fortress. Formations of bombers operated deep in Nazi territory without fighter escorts.

• Until the P-51 “Mustang” showed up later in the war, brave bomber crews operating in daylight worked in formations to fight off the Luftwaffe on the way to bombing runs and on the way back.

• The bombing of Nazi forces and the support structures throughout Europe was intensified throughout Europe.

• The Flying Fortress were frequent visitors to France and part of the effort to destroy forward deployed Nazi forces arrayed against the allies operating at sea and from England.

July 1943 Proved a Decisive Month

• The largest tank battle in history was fought and won by the Russians against the Germans in early July 1943

• The allied invasion of Sicily begun on July 10, 1943

• Mussolini was overthrown by the Italians on July 25, 1943

• And the largest firestorm bombing in history until the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan occurred with a joint US-British massive bombing assault on Hamburg which began on July 24, 1943 and the fires would continue in Hamburg until October 1943

July 4, 1943

• Independence day 1943 marked the first anniversary of the Eight Air Force bomber operations from the UK.

• The occasion was marked by a three-pronged assault in force with 192 1st Wing Forts visiting aircraft works at Le Mans and Nantes while 83 from 4th Wing went down to La Pallice.

• Roger A. Freedman, The Mighty Eighth (London: Cassell and Co, 1970).

Action on July 4, 1943

• The report that day on the bombing activities of the 8th

Air Force:– 8th Bomber Command Mission 71: 192 B-17s are

dispatched against aircraft factories at Le Mans and Nanes, France; 166 make a very effective attack; US claims 52-14-22 Luftwaffe aircraft; US loses 7 with 1 damaged beyond repair and 53 others damaged; casualties are 1 KIA, 9 WIA and 70 MIA.

– 83 other B-17s are dispatched against submarine yards at La Pallice, France; 71 hit the target between 1201 and 1204 local; US claims 0-1-0 Luftwaffe aircraft; US loses 1 and 1 is damaged; casualties are 10 MIA. Bombing is extremely accurate.

The Ruthie in the Raid

• One of the Fortresses raiding the S.N.C.A aircraft factory at Nantes was Ruthie of the 326th Bomber Sqdn which was a unit recently re-established in the 92nd

group after acting as the bomber CCRC nucleus . • Just after bombing, this fortress was hit by cannon fire

puncturing two fuel tanks and wrecking the hydraulic system and flaps.

• A 20-mm cannon shell, piercing the floor between the two waist gunners, exploded in the radio room wrecking equipment.

• Another shell hit the ball turret seriously wounding Sgt Richard O Gettys in the groin, chest and face.

The Ruthie in the Raid (2)

• The turret was still partially serviceable and though failing in strength, Gettys continued firing his guns until he collapsed. The tail gunner was also wounded 1/ LT Robert L Campbell flew Ruthie (named after his wife) home to Alconbury.

• An SOS was flashed by lamp to the formation leader asking him to notify base of Ruthie’s difficulties.

• Campbell said afterwards , “When I started to land I discovered we had a flat tire. I held her on the runway as long as I could and then whirled her around in front of the control tower, but she stayed up.”

• Ruthie was only fit for salvage.• They gave ball gunner Gettys the DSC and Campbell another Fort on which

he bestowed the name Ruthie II . This Fortress was destined to become the vehicle of one of the most heroic actions in the annals of the Eighth Air Force.

July 14, 1943

• July 14th Bastille Day was marked by three Flying Fortresses attacks in France. A factory at Villacoublay was hit by 101, while the Luftwaffe base at Amiens received the wrath of fifty-three B-17s, and another fifty-two bombed Le Bourget Luftwaffe base outside Paris.”

• Bill Yenne, B-17 at War (Zenith Press, 2006).

What It Felt Like (July 1943)

• The Major hesitated before answering and studied a large chart on the wall crowded with names. “See that chart? That’s the combat roster. We’ve been here sixty days, and so far we’ve lost a hundred and one percent of our combat personnel.”

• Comer, John (2012-01-05). Combat Crew: The Story of 25 Combat Missions Over Europe From the Daily Journal of a B-17 Gunner (p. 2). John Comer. Kindle Edition.

“Consider Yourself Already Dead”

• As one Fortress gunner described the bombing run against Le Bourget on August 16, 1943:

• “Soon after daylight the formation was crossing the gray-green water of the English Channel. My anxiety and tension mounted, as I knew we would face the fierce German fighters, for on this clear day we would invade the lair of Goering’s best. The veterans had made certain we knew what usually happened to new crews on their first meeting with Jerry. They were not expected to come back — it was as simple as that.”

Preparing for Action

• It was July 1943, and it was all coming to a head for us quite soon now. What would it be like? Could we handle it?

• After only ten days of orientation in England, I knew we needed more gunnery practice. The truck slowed down and I saw we were approaching our destination.

• All day I had been dreading that moment. Most likely the base would be one of those hard-luck outfits who regularly lost high percentages of their aircraft.

• The worst of all was the 100th Group. Please! Not that unlucky snake-bit command!

• But logic indicated that the depleted groups would need more replacement crews like us, who had been hurriedly trained and rushed to the 8th Air Force to cover the heavy losses

• Comer, John (2012-01-05). Combat Crew: The Story of 25 Combat Missions Over Europe From the Daily Journal of a B-17 Gunner (p. 1). John Comer. Kindle Edition.

First Mission

• There was no time for a briefing on the target before takeoff. As soon as we were settled down in the formation Gleichauf came on intercom: “Pilot to crew, Pilot to crew — we’re heading for Kiel in northern Germany.

• There are several hundred fighters in the area and you can expect a hot reception.• Be ready for attacks halfway across the North Sea. This is your first mission — now

don’t get excited an’ let ’em come in on us!” • The formation was far better than I expected. Hour after hour we droned on. It

would not be long now: if only we could be lucky enough to get by this one! • The way Gleichauf was holding tight formation, I hoped the fighters would not pick

us out to be a new crew. Of course I was keyed up to a high pitch and I wondered if I would forget what little I knew about aerial gunnery in the excitement of the first fighter attacks.

• Comer, John (2012-01-05). Combat Crew: The Story of 25 Combat Missions Over Europe From the Daily Journal of a B-17 Gunner (pp. 14-15). John Comer. Kindle Edition.

On the Way Back

• Then, on the way home, some Focke-Wulfs showed up, armed with rockets, and I saw three B-I7s in the different groups around us suddenly blow up and drop through the sky. Just simply blow up and drop through the sky.

• Nowadays, if you come across something awful happening, you always think, 'My God, it's just like a movie,' and that's what I thought. I had a feeling that the planes weren't really falling and burning, the men inside them weren't really dying, and everything would turn out happily in the end. Then, very quietly through the interphone, our tail gunner said, 'I'm sorry, sir, I've been hit.’

• I crawled back to him and found that he'd been wounded in the side of the head - not deeply but enough so he was bleeding pretty bad. Also, he'd got a lot of the plexiglas dust from his shattered turret in his eyes, so he was, at least for the time being, blind.

On the Way Back (2)

• Though he was blind, he was still able to use his hands, and I ordered him to fire his guns whenever he heard from me.

• I figured that a few bursts every so often from his fifties would keep the Germans off our tail, and I also figured that it would give the kid something to think about besides the fact that he'd been hit.

• When I got back to the nose, the pilot told me that our No. 4 engine had been shot out. Gradually we lost our place in the formation and flew nearly alone over France.

• That's about the most dangerous thing that can happen to a lame Fort, but the German fighters had luckily given up and we skimmed over the top of the flak all the way to the Channel."

• http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/b17.htm

1942 and the Battle of The Atlantic

• By the time the B-17s reached the UK in 1942, an absolute priority was attacking the U-Boats disrupting the maritime lifeline to the island nation.

• 500 allied ships were sunk in the first half of 1942; and only 21 U-Boats• The Admiralty had tasked a small civilian company working with the RAF

to develop radar to track U-Boats• And after they had done so these civilians became the first ever to support

the military on operations research and to develop new concepts of operations to attack the U-boats

• The first success was by a Wellington bomber attacking U-boats on July 13, 1942

• The impact was to drive the U-boats to a new “air gap” zone South of Greenland

• The main bomber used were the B-24s with the B-17s largely used to attack the support infrastructure for the U-boats

The Air Strikes in Support of the Battle of the Atlantic

• Until the advent of the Very-Long-Range [VLR] aircraft [B-24 “Liberator”+, German submarines operated with relative impunity in the “Gap”! Either as individual boats or as part of a “wolf-pack”, could attack allied convoys and wreak tremendous damage, unafraid of attack from the air. This problem was most acute at night, all advantage in this case being to the U-boat.

The B-24, equipped with centimeter radar, able to drop bombs and depth charges, had a devastating effect upon the German U-boat service, both night and day, clear weather and inclement. The period known to the German mariner as “Black May” *1943+ was due - - in large measure - - to the VLR aircraft.

"The B-24 made a massive contribution to Allied victory in the Battle of the Atlantic against German U-boats . . . The Very Long Range (VLR) Liberators 'almost doubled the reach of Britain's maritime reconnaissance force. This added range enabled Coastal Command patrols to cover the Mid-Atlantic gap, where U-boats had operated with near impunity."

• http://militarythoughts.blogspot.com/2008/06/this-is-coolbert-gap-it-was-known-by_18.html\

Bay of Biscay “Campaign”

Bay of Biscay (2)

• During the summer of 1943 Coastal Command undertook a campaign to destroy U-boats transiting the Bay of Biscay on their way to or from the Atlantic.

• The submarines were additionally forced to remain submerged at night as well as by day, which was bad for morale, and reduced operation time by 5 days.

• On 30 July, in one of the most dramatic encounters of the Biscay Campaign, the outbound submarines U 461, U 462, and U 504 were sighted and sunk. U 461 by Sunderland "U" of 461 Squadron RAAF, U 462 by Halifax "S" of 502 Squadron RAF, and U 504 by the sloops of Captain Walker's legendary 2nd Escort Group.

• Not only had three U-boats been sunk in one action, but U 461 and U 462 were both "Milchkuh", "milk cow", submarine tankers, badly needed to maintain the long-distance operations the U-boat Arm now wished to expand.

• http://www.war-experience.org/history/keyaspects/atlantic/pagethree.asp

Air Strikes Against the U-Boat Transit

• FOR THE GREATER PART of the war, the main operational bases for the German U-boats were situated in the French Atlantic ports where, sheltered beneath many feet of concrete, they were immune from bombing attacks. But to reach the Allied shipping lanes from these bases they had to cross the Bay of Biscay. By the middle of August 1943 they were managing this only by remaining submerged throughout almost the whole passage and by creeping in and out close to the north-west corner of Spain, thus keeping as far as possible from the air patrols flown from the south-west of England.

• http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2-2Epi-c4-WH2-2Epi-a.html

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-RN-II/UK-RN-II-14.html

La Rochelle / La Pallice, France

• From September 1940 La Pallice was the alternative base for the Italian Betasom submarines (the main base of operations being Bordeaux). The 3rd Flotillatook over the base on October 27, 1941.

• In April 1941 the German Command decided to build also a bunker in La Pallice. The first two pens were finished in October 1941.

• The U-boat bunker was 195 m wide, 165 m long and 19m high. The first U-boat in the bunker was U-82 on November 19, 1941. Then followed U-332 (16th December) and U-432 (24th December).

From August 16, 1943 Raid Against Le Bourget

• “As we taxied out to become part of a long procession of B-17s waddling along the taxi strip, I stood up on an ammo box to let my head get above the radio room roof. I saw a long, ambling line of Forts proceeding like huge, drab prehistoric birds that made screeching cries as the brakes were constantly applied to keep them on the taxi strip. It was an otherwordly scene in the dim light just at sunrise.”

• Brian D. O’Neill, Half a Wing, Three Engines and a Prayer (New York: McGraw Hill, 1999).

A December 1943 Raid

• Joseph Hallock was a twenty-two-year-old first lieutenant serving as the bombardier aboard "Ginger" a B-17 flying out of its base north of London.

• My first raid was on December thirty-first, over Ludwigshaven. Naturally, not knowing what it was going to be like, I didn't feel scared.

• A little sick, maybe, but not scared. That comes later, when you begin to understand what your chances of survival are.

• Once we'd crossed into Germany, we spotted some flak, but it was a good long distance below us and looked pretty and not dangerous: different-colored puffs making a soft, cushiony-looking pattern under our plane.

• A bombardier sits right in the plexiglas nose of a Fort, so he sees everything neatly laid out in front of him, like a living-room rug. It seemed to me at first that I'd simply moved in on a wonderful show.' I got over feeling sick, there was so much to watch.

• We made our run over the target, got our bombs away, and apparently did a good job. Maybe it was the auto-pilot and bomb sight that saw to that, but I'm sure I was cool enough on that first raid to do my job without thinking too much about it.

The Role of the B-17

• The B-17 was the American response to the U-Boat assault on the Atlantic bridge. While the U-boats attacked the American resupply of the allies in the United Kingdom, the Flying Fortress took the fight deep into Nazi Germany.

• And it was the American way of taking the war to Germany and to German forces in Europe. What became the Mighty 8th was the second front prior to North Africa or Normandy.

The B-17 as a Fleet

• The aircraft was rugged, well fortified and able to land in some cases with three engines or less.

• Battle damage photos are truly amazing of planes coming back with major parts of the aircraft missing.

• But it was designed to operate as a fleet and in formation flying to provide for the ability to protect and defend the planes engaged in the mission.

Fleet Operations: Challenges

• De-confliction of airspace was a basic problem which was difficult to manage– There were mid-air collisions– There was fratricide by fire when B-17 gunners were attacking enemy fighters

• This was severely aggravated by low visibility conditions or night operations– Pilots detested the severe risks of collisions or mishaps because B-17

formations were not really suitable for night flights.( Comer, John (2012-01-05). Combat Crew: The Story of 25 Combat Missions Over Europe From the Daily Journal of a B-17 Gunner (p. 216). John Comer. Kindle Edition.)

• Enemy fighters aimed to create havoc in the fleet formations• The high-low stacks within the formation meant that the high stack

especially suffered from dealing with very low temperatures, but coping with cold was a core problem facing crews throughout missions

Over Schweinfurt, 8/17/43

The B-17 "All American" (414th Squadron, 97BG) flown by Lieutenant Kendrick R. Bragg, its tail section almost severed by a collision with an enemy fighter, flew 90

minutes back to its home base, landed safely and broke in two after landing

Attacking Big B: February 3, 1945

• “Over one thousand Fortresses would take part. The American bombers would be escorted by more than 900 P-51 Mustangs and P-47 Thunderbolts. The target was the center of Berlin – more specifically Gestapo headquarters, the Reich Chancellery, the German Air Ministry….”

• “The massive American air rad was the worst yet for Germany; the bombers dropped almost twenty-three hundred tons of bombs on the city of Berlin. For nearly two solid hours, the German capital was pounded by wave after wave of American bombers.”

• When the first American bomber hit Berlin, the last bomber in the formation was just over Holland.

• Travis L. Ayres, The Bomber Boys (New York: NAL Caliber, 2005).

Moving Underground

http://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/american&military_history/Doolittle-Black%20Monday-Need%20for%20Innovation-1944.pdf

Diversity of Concepts of Operations

• Daylight Strategic Precision Bombing from the UK• Bombing Deep Within Germany for Strategic

Effect• Tactical Bombing Support for Preparation for D-

Day• When Italian Bases were Established Targeted

Fuel Facilities Supporting the German War Machine

• Shuttle bombing missions to support Soviet tactical operations, on the way back, and strategic targets on the way to Russia

Operation Frantic

Operation Frantic (2)

• U.S. 15 Air Force bombers and fighters based in Italy would bomb targets in the East, land in Russia, refuel & rearm, and then hit another target on the way back.

• 8th Air Force bombers based in the UK did the same. • The Soviets provided three bases in the Ukraine; heavy bombers at

Poltava and Mirgorod and the fighters at Piryatin. • The Fifteenth Air Force flew its first mission on 2 June 1944 when

130 B-17 Flying Fortresses, escorted by 70 P-51 Mustangs, bombed the rail yards at Debreczen, Hungary.

• The Eighth Air Force flew its first mission on 21 June when 123 B-17s bombed the Schwartzhelde synthetic oil plant at Ruhland, south of Berlin and 21 attacked the Elsterwerda industrial area.

Operation Frantic (3)

• But, unknown to the Americans, a Luftwaffe He-177 followed the B-17s to the Russian base at Poltava and after midnight Luftwaffe aircraft attacked and destroyed 43 B-17s and damage 26.

• Frantic flights continued into September with success, but the June 21st attack by the Luftwaffe on Poltava had revealed the Achilles heal of the operation.

• The Soviets lacked radar working with an organized air defense with night fighters to defend the bases, and they would not turn that role over to the Americans. That made the operation too risky and it was discontinued.

• But, despite some prickly spots, it marked the high point of East-West direct co-operation during World War II

B-17 Variants

• The B-17 evolved over time to correct deficiencies and to add capabilities as the Luftwaffe changed tactics to attack the heavy bomber formations.

• The normal path for combat airpower is to evolve over time, to overcome problems or to work more effectively in concepts of operations, and war is an interactive deadly game which requires technical adaptation.

The Coming of the B-17

• The United States in the 1930s was much like now. Even more so than now, the US was a reluctant investor in new military technologies.

• Past is Prologue For Many Decision-Makers and Funders of Military Equipment; But the Future is Always Coming and Requiring Change.

• When the Army Air Corps held a competition for a bomber, the B-17 lost among many other things because it was in the words of a senior Department of War official “too much of a plane for one man to handle.”

The Coming of the B-17 (2)

• The B-17 won the initial fly off

• And the Army Air Corps ordered 65 even before the competition was over

• But on the second flight the plane crashed and the B-17 was formally excluded from competition because it had crashed (due to pilot error)

• Douglas B-18 Bolo was the eventual winner, and the Army ordered 133 of these less capable planes.

B-17 Crash

October 30, 1935; B-17 crashes on take-off from Wright Field, Ohio, due to locked control surfaces, killing early military aviator and test pilot Maj. Ployer Peter Hill.

The Coming of the B-17 (3)

• Although opinion in the AAF placed special stress on strategic bombardment as the prime mission of an air force, the dominant view in the War Department General Staff was officially stated as late as October 1938 in these terms: "the Infantry Division continues to be the basic combat element by which battles are won, the necessary enemy field forces destroyed, and captured territory held." http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/VI/AAF-VI-6.html).

The Coming of the B-17 (4)

• There were significant doctrinal differences beyond a ground-centric focus

• There were bomber versus fighter advocates– E.g. Chennault on the priority of pursuit over bombardment– In 1938, “The War Department decided that the funds earmarked for

the purchase of the first 67 B-17s could buy as many as 300 attack aircraft….Consequently, the purchase of B-17Cs, already on order, was postponed beyond June 1940.”(Bernard C. Nalty, The US Army Air Forces in World War II (Honolulu, Hawaii, University Press of the Pacific, 2005).

– Which led in part to downplaying how the two capabilities might be effective combined elements for operations

• The USN saw bombers as useful for coastal defense but not for maritime operations– CNO Admiral King argued that the Navy was responsible for all air

operations out of sight of land

But the Bomber Remained in Play

• Maj. Gen. Benjamin D. Foulois, then chief of the Air Corps endorsed the recommendation of one of his field commanders to procure at least a few of the B-17s for an operating squadron to conduct advanced aeronautical tests.

• The War Department approved an Air Corps contract with Boeing in January 1936 for thirteen of the aircraft fitted with superchargers and other equipment for high-altitude flight.

• In spite of losing the competition and crashing, Brigadier General Augustine Warner Robins, chief of the Air Material Command believed in the plane.

• He persuaded the War Department to buy 13 of the planes under the experimental provisions of Section K of the National Defense Act (1926).

Remaining in Play (2)

• At the same time, General Frank M. Andrews, commander of the General Headquarters (Army) Air Force weighed in with his support.

• 13 test models of the Flying Fortress received funding.

• At the same time, Hitler decided against the Luftwaffe developing or buying a medium heavy bomber.

• By a thread, history was being made by two different decisions in Berlin and Washington.

How It Was Bought

• The Statute that shaped the way for the procurement of aircraft was the Air Corps Act of 1926. The Act provided for competition among designs and encouraged aircraft development.

• It also permitted the Secretary of War to buy experimental aircraft at his discretion and without competition and to award to the lowest responsible bidder in a competition.

• The Act also established policy for different types of contracts, including making cost-plus percentage of cost contracts illegal. It encouraged the use of cost-plus incentive type contracts in order to accommodated design changes

• Major Nannette Benitez, World War II Production: Why Were the B-17 and B-24 Produced in Parallel? Air Command and Staff College, March 1997.

Context for Acquisition in the 1930s

• As early as 1937, the 2nd Bombardment Group was equipped with B-17s, using them to perfect techniques of high-altitude, long-distance bombing.

• Since the only foreseeable use of such a capability was the defense of the nation's shores from enemy fleets, the U.S. Navy fiercely opposed the Army's development of the four-engine bomber. By way of a compromise the Army ordered 39 more B-17B's.

• The Air Corps' air doctrine envisioned large formations of fast, high-flying B-17 bombers, defending themselves against enemy fighters with their own massed machine-gun fire.

• Fighter escort was considered impractical, and even undesirable by the bomber advocates. In a way, any admission that fighter escort was necessary would imply that enemy fighters posed a real threat and that the Flying Fortresses were not invulnerable.

• http://acepilots.com/planes/b17.html

The Importance of Leadership

• The Boeing Company was Central to the Gamble to Build the B-17

• The Boeing leadership literally bet the future of the company on what would become the B-17 as did several of its test pilots with their lives

• And airpower advocates in the Army Air Corps cultivated leaders who would become central to the War Effort– E.g. Col. Frank Andrews, core advocate of strategic

bombing brought General George Marshall to the Boeing plant in 1938 and Marshall learned first hand why the B-17 was the priority not the B-18

The Roosevelt Administration and The Coming of the B-17

• At the urging of the War Department, Congress in June 1936 authorized the Air Corps to increase its strength to the 2,320 aircraft that the Drum and Baker Boards had recommended, but the administration refused to budget enough money in fiscal 1937 to begin the process

• Purchase of B-17 Cs was put on the back burner in 1938 in favor of “restricted to that class of aviation designed for the close support of ground troops and the protection of that type of aircraft”-in effect attack aircraft, fighters, and twin-engine bombers.

• Enter Munich and Roosevelt recommends in November 1938 an Air Corps of 20,000 planes and an

• industry capable of producing 24,000 planes a year.

Plus Cą Change

• Air Corps officials did not wish to risk irritating congressmen, who seemed inclined to judge air defense in terms of numbers of aircraft on hand rather than in terms of quality, performance, or tactical suitability.

• An episode in April 1937 will illustrate this tendency. The chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee that handled War Department estimates admitted to the House that he had no great familiarity with military matters.

• Nevertheless, he recorded his protest against the "unwise" tendency in the air arm to build larger and more expensive bombers such as the Boeing B-17.120 Less than two months later the effect of this type of criticism became evident. The estimates for fiscal year 1938 called for 177 B-18 twin-engine bombers and 13 B-17 four-engine bombers.

• After operational tests by tactical units, the GHQ Air Force "strongly recommended" that only the B-17 be procured. To buy the more expensive bomber, however, would be to buy fewer bombers.

Plus Cą Change (2)

• In the face of congressional criticism, Air Corps officers felt it was "impractical" to do so unless the Secretary of War was personally willing to "accept the responsibility to Congress" for decreasing the total number of aircraft in the 1938 budget.

• Estimates for the four-engine bombers were thus deferred until fiscal year 1939. As a consequence the B-17 units, considered vital to the nation's defense, were not procured until the crisis had already arrived.

• Irving Brinton Helley, Jr. Buying Aircraft: Materiel Procurement for the Army Air Forces (Washington DC: Center for Military History, 1989).

B-18s Versus B-17s

• The War Department Insisted on B-18s Versus B-17s

• B-18s were underpowered and inadequately armed and were replaced as the fortunes of war determined the outcome – B-17s and B-24s were the wartime bombers

• “The B-18 was, as a practical matter, obsolete when it left the assembly line.”

• But it was cheaper!

And the B-18 at War

• After Pearl Harbor, the B-18 was pressed into service as a major asset in Hawaii

• “We were told that there were three B-18s flyable and we would take off and find the Jap fleet. I was scared. I thought of my slim chances of coming out of this flight alive should we run into some Jap fighters. Hell! They’d blow us right out of the sky in the these very vulnerable B-18s.”

• Comment from then Private Schaeffer as quoted in Gene Eric Salecker, Fortress Against the Sun (Combined Publishing, 2001), p. 54.

Why No Upsurge in B-17 Buys?

• The evidence available indicates that the failure of the air arm to present its best case to Congress arose in part from the position of the Air Corps within the War Department.

• “…It was repeatedly asserted that advances in air strength were desirable but not advisable if such gains could only be made at the expense of other arms and services.

• Irving Brinton Helley, Jr. Buying Aircraft: Materiel Procurement for the Army Air Forces (Washington DC: Center for Military History, 1989).

The B-17 Started as Pacific Asset

• The B-17 was part of the Pearl Harbor and Philippine kick-offs to World War II

• It was the B-17 anticipated landings in Pearl Harbor on December 7th that confused American airmen about the air traffic identified early on December 7th

• And the largest contingent of B-17s was on the Philippines for the defense of the island against the Japanese threatened invasion

• There were 107 P-40 Tomahawk fighters and 35 B-17 bombers were in place in the Philippines at the time of the Japanese attack

• The first Japanese Zero shot down by a US aircraft was by a B-17

The B-17 in Defense of the Philippines

• The B-17 was sent to the Philippines by Arnold and Marshall for the long-range defense of the US forces in the Philippines

• To bolster the air arm in the Philippines, in July, Major General Henry ‘Hap' H. Arnold, Chief of the Army Air Forces, proposed reinforcing the Philippine Army Air Corps by sending four heavy bombardment groups and 2 pursuit squadrons to the Philippines. General George C. Marshall, United States Army Chief of Staff, echoed this concern when on 1 December he stated, "We must get every B-17 to the Philippines as soon as possible." However, by the time hostilities broke out 6 days later, only 107 P-40 Tomahawk fighters and 35 B-17 bombers were in place in the Philippines.

• http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/articles/macarthursfailures.aspx

A Reality Check

• November 1941: General Marshall as confident that the B-17s in the Philippines could easily fend of any Japanese attack and set “the paper cities of Japan” ablaze

• Small problem: the B-17s had NEVER trained for such a mission

• Meanwhile, Major General Brereton, the newly designated Air Commander of the Philippine Air Forces had a different view– With only one airfield he believed the B-17s were extremely

vulnerable to elimination by attack from the air– Which of course turned out to be the case– Amazingly, in spite of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the B-17s were

caught on the ground a day later and in a 45 minute attack Clark Field was ruble

Preparation

• General Brereton flew to Clark field on December 6th to plan a potential bombing mission ataingsFormosa should war break out

• Because of lack of military intelligence the plan was to attack Takao Harbor based on assumption of presence of Japanese transports and warships.

• Exercise was planned for December 8th for the entire 19th Bomber Group

• Unfortunately, the Japanese had real war plans and real military intelligence

A Defining Moment

• In response to the attack on the Philippines, a single B-17 attacked a Japanese capital ship and severly damaged it

• On the way back a pack of zero fighters pursued it and assumed from the amount of gunfire and its speed that the single plane was many more

• As a Japanese pilot involved in the destruction of that B-17 commented: “This was our first experience with the B-17 and the airplane’s unusual size caused us to midjudge our firing distance. In addition, the bomber’s extraordinary speed, for which we had made no allowance, threw our range finders off.”

• “We had never heard of unescorted bombers in battle.”• Gene Eric Salecker, Fortress Against the Sun (Combined

Publishing, 2001), p. 71 and 66.

But the B-17 Was Not Used Correctly

• MacArthur as Army Chief of Staff Clearly Considered the Army Air Corps as an extension of the ground forces and as a fairly limited coastal defense force

• He was at the forefront of resisting the formation of an independent air arm and forcefully underscored that aviation could not independently influence the outcome of war

• And when his chance came to use the B-17s to strike Japanese airpower on Formosa, in spite of several hours of fog which kept the Japanese on the ground, did not send the B-17s to do the one mission which they could have done, namely to bomb the Japanese aircraft on the ground in Formosa

• Would MacArthur have changed his views if there were enough B-17s in the fleet to demonstrate the “theory” of strategic bombing or of having an “independent effect”?

• The aircraft was procured as an experiment and was considered by many to be just that and not an essential element of the American warfighting capabilities

MacArthur Left the Philippines on a B-17

• MacArthur and his family and his staff left the Philippines for Australia aboard a B-17

The Aircraft

http://www.b17.org/history/history.asp

The Nose Section

• This is a B-17E model. It does not show the gun on the other side. The navigator fired both guns depending on the direction of the attack. The bombardier’s gun fired forward. In the later G model both side guns were removed and two guns mounted in a chin turret under the bombardier’s position. The platform where the Norden Sight was carried in combat can be plainly seen directly in front of the bombardier’s seat.

• Comer, John (2012-01-05). Combat Crew: The Story of 25 Combat Missions Over Europe From the Daily Journal of a B-17 Gunner (p. 17). John Comer. Kindle Edition.

The Cockpit

• The two seats for the pilots can be seen clearly. Behind them the flight engineer stood in the top turret. The two turret guns were fired by a Sperry Computing Sight, which automatically compensated for lead and all other aiming factors if it was tracked smoothly and if the wing length of the fighter was properly set into the sight. The door seen at the rear opened into the bomb bay. Access to the nose section was a constricted space under the pilots’

• Comer, John (2012-01-05). Combat Crew: The Story of 25 Combat Missions Over Europe From the Daily Journal of a B-17 Gunner (p. 17). John Comer. Kindle Edition.

The Radio Room

• You can see the radio operator’s work table at right front (right side of the picture). The door at that point opened into the bomb bay. The door to the rear (left side of the picture) opened into the rear of the aircraft, called the waist.

• Since this is an early drawing the radio gun is not shown. It was mounted in an open hatch about five feet long and two feet wide. This created an enormous draft super-frigid air gushing through like a storm.

• Imagine working a radio wireless key with the air temperature 50 below zero. The later G model enclosed the hatch space with clear plastic with the gun mounted into it. That saved many R.O.s from freezing injuries

• Comer, John (2012-01-05). Combat Crew: The Story of 25 Combat Missions Over Europe From the Daily Journal of a B-17 Gunner (p. 23). John Comer. Kindle Edition.

The Bomb Bay

• Note the narrow catwalk down the middle of the bay. The two vertical supporting beams in the center of the walk created a narrow space that caused the crew men all kinds of trouble trying to squeeze through it due to their bulky high-altitude clothing and the combat gear they all wore. There was not enough space to get through it wearing a chute, so when bombs malfunctioned we had to work on that walk without a chute knowing that if we lost our oxygen supply we could tumble out into the air. The bomb-bay doors down below would open at a weight under 75 pounds.

• Comer, John (2012-01-05). Combat Crew: The Story of 25 Combat Missions Over Europe From the Daily Journal of a B-17 Gunner (pp. 17-23). John Comer. Kindle Edition.

The Waist and Tail

• The door at the front of the waist opened into the radio room. Just behind this door the ball turret was hung with about two-thirds of the turret suspended below the aircraft where the worst of the flak burst.

• The gun that can be seen is mounted in an open window. With two such openings the wind storm was terrific, causing countless freezing casualties.

• The later G model closed the two windows with clear plastic and mounted the guns through the thick plastic.

• This cut back on frostbite, but the waist guns were no longer as effective as the earlier open window mountings.

• The tail position was, as you can see, quite crowded. It was so deadly to fighters that they did not attack us very often from the rear.

• Comer, John (2012-01-05). Combat Crew: The Story of 25 Combat Missions Over Europe From the Daily Journal of a B-17 Gunner (p. 23). John Comer. Kindle Edition.

The Luftwaffe’s B-17

The Luftwaffe (2)

• The Germans captured at least one B-17 Flying Fortress. Operated by the KG 200 special Luftwaffe unit, it was perhaps intended to be used for long range reconnaissance. Instead, it was flown by its Luftwaffe crew to Spain in 1944 where it (and they) were interned by the Spanish government.

• This B-17F-27-BO (41-24585; PU-B) was crash-landed near Melun, France by a crew from the 303d Bombardment Group on December 12, 1942 and repaired by Luftwaffe ground staff.

• The Germans also captured a B-24 Liberator bomber, which was for some reason flown to join an Allied B-24 raid in February 1945:

• On a February 1945 741st BS mission against Vienna, "Before reaching the target, a 'phantom' B-24joined our formation.…The P-51s [of the Tuskegee Airmen] came in and over the radio…the German phantom pilot said he was from the 55th Wing and got lost. But the 55th Wing wasn't flying that day and the plane had no tail markings. The fighter pilot squadron leader gave him some bursts from his guns and warned the phantom to turn back. He added, 'You will be escorted.' The German pilot replied that he could make it alone. The P-51 pilot said: 'You are going to be escorted whether you want it or not. You're going to have two men on your tail all the way back and don't try to land in Yugoslavia.'…The phantom left with his escort and we heard nothing further from the event.”

• http://borepatch.blogspot.com/2011/03/luftwaffes-b-17.html

BQ-17 and Its Relatives

• The B-17 was converted to a drone and used to monitor atomic weapons explosions and their effects;

• Aphrodite and Anvil were the World War II code names of United States Army Air Forces and United States Navy operations to use B-17 and PB4Y bombers as precision-guided munitions against bunkers such as those of Operation Crossbow.

• The plan called for B-17 aircraft which had been taken out of operational service – various nicknames existed such as "robot", "baby", "drone" or "weary Willy”– to be loaded to capacity with explosives, and flown by radio control into bomb-resistant fortifications such as German U-boat pens and V-weapon sites

• The 3205th Drone Group operated obsolete aircraft during the 1950s as radio-controlled drones as aerial targets for various tests. It was the primary post-World War II operator of surplus B-17G Flying Fortress aircraft.

Drones (2)

• Many surplus B-17s ended their lives as remotely-controlled drones. During the war, a few war-weary B-17s (mainly Fs) were used as remotely-controlled bombs for attacks against heavily-defended German targets. The designation BQ-7 was applied to these conversions.

• The first peacetime use of drone Fortresses was as unmanned aircraft that would fly near or even through mushroom clouds during atomic tests. In May of 1946, sixteen B-17s were withdrawn from stores for conversion into drones with the addition of radio, radar, television, and other equipment. Six other Fortresses were converted as drone controllers. Most of the work was performed by the San Antonio Air Depot at Kelly Field in Texas. The first of these nuclear tests took place in the South Pacific under the code name *Operation Crossroads*. When the USAF was established in 1947, the director aircraft became DB-17Gs, while the drones became QB-17Gs. Further nuclear tests occurred through 1952. The drones were operated primarily by the 3205th Drone Group out of Eglin AFB, Florida.

• The designation QB-17L was assigned to surplus B-17Gs that were modified during the postwar years for use as radio-controlled drones for various tests, usually as targets for missiles. They were sometimes equipped with television cameras to provide a target's view of the approaching missile. They were usually painted in red-orange Day-Glo paint with black diagonal stripes for increased visibility. Their serial numbers were prefixed by an O, indicative of their obsolete status. Sources for QB-17 conversions were new B-17s that had went directly to storage upon delivery from the factory, B-17s that had been retired from other duties, and DB-17 drone directors that were now surplus to requirements.

• Most of the QB-17Ls met their end as flying targets for the early Nike Ajax surface-to-air missile or for the Hughes Falcon air-to-air missile. Often, the QB-17L would be the subject of intentional near misses to preserve the drone for as many missions as possible. Other QB-17Ls were used for various unmanned but destructive tests such as the ditching tests carried out by NACA in San Francisco Bay. The last DB-17/QB-17 mission was flown on August 6, 1959, with 44-83727 being blown out of the sky by a Falcon missile fired by a F-101 Voodoo. The last QB-17L was destroyed by an IM-99 Bomarc missile in 1960.

• http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_bombers/b17_24.html

Boeing B-17 drone at Eniwetok 1948