Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress (WO 2): boeken - historie (1/2)

The B-17 - The Flying Forts

There is no such thunder in history - nor ever will be again - as the deep-throated roar of the mighty, four-engined B-17s that streamed across the skies in World War II. The long runways are silent now, the men and planes are gone.

But out of the massive files of records available, and the memories of the men who flew, Martin Caidin has assembled this dramatic portrait of America's most formidable heavy bomber of the war. "The B-17: The Flying Forts" recreates a vanished era and a great and gallant plane - a plane that could absorb three thousand enemy bullets, fly with no rudder, and complete its mission on two engines.

A plane that American pilots flew at Pearl Harbor, Tunis, Midway, Palermo, Schweinfurt, Regensberg, Normandy, and Berlin, in thousands of missions and through hundreds of thousands of miles of flak-filled skies. A plane that proved itself in every combat theater as the greatest heavy bomber of World War II.

B-17 Memphis Belle - Rare photographs from Wartime Archives (Images of War)

Without doubt Boeing Flying Fortress B-17F 41-42285 Memphis Belle and her crew generate an image that is an all-American icon. Indeed, it has been claimed that the Memphis Belle is in the top five of the most famous American aircraft of all time.
In September, 1942, a new Flying Fortress was delivered at Bangor, Maine, to a crew of ten eager American lads headed by Robert K. Morgan, a lanky 24-year-old USAAF pilot from Asheville, N. C. The boys climbed aboard, flew their ship to Memphis, Tenn. and christened her Memphis Belle in honour of Morgan's fiancée, Miss Margaret Polk of Memphis, and then headed across the Atlantic to join the US Eighth Air Force in England.

Between November 7 1942 and May 171943 they flew the Memphis Belle over Hitler's Europe twenty-five times. They dropped more than 60 tons of bombs on targets in Germany, France and Belgium. They blasted the Focke-Wulf plant at Bremen, locks at St. Nazaire and Brest, docks and shipbuilding installations at Wilhelmshaven, railway yards at Rouen, submarine pens and power houses at Lorient, and airplane works at Mortsel near Antwerp. They shot down eight enemy fighters, probably got five others and damaged at least a dozen.
Memphis Belle flew through all the flak that Hitler could send up to them. She slugged it out with Goering's Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs. She was riddled by machine gun and cannon fire. Once she returned to base with most of her tail shot away. German guns destroyed a wing and five engines. Her fuselage was shot to pieces but Memphis Belle kept going back. The Memphis Belle crew has been decorated 51 times.

B-17 Bomber (Pilot's Flight Operation Instructions)

The Boeing B-17 was the first mass-produced, four-engine heavy bomber. Used throughout World War II for strategic bombing, the plane earned a reputation for its toughness and versatility.
Carrying a crew of ten, and 8,000 pounds of bombs on long range missions, the '17 wreaked havoc on Germany during the critical years 1942-45.

The "Memphis Belle", the first B-17 to fly 25 missions over Europe, is perhaps the most famous plane to emerge from the European Theatre.

Originally printed by the United States Army Air Force in December of 1942, the B-17 Bomber Pilot's Flight Operating Manual taught pilots everything they needed to know about the "Queen of the Skies." Originally classified "Restricted", the manual was declassified long ago and is here reprinted in book form. Color images appear as black and white.