Fifty years ago this month. the Nikfismjust e sac- -RePLs'afrit I ■ ss oat you tledY.:Thz ai3out,t -A B-17 rolled out of the factory and her: . one former pilot said. "She 1:itve wu confidence sitting there in . into history. quiet repose. Thu were store she would get you there and bring you hack. That's why we called her Queen of the . - WorldS .: II bomberlte Zit inn-al:NI %toe over torged victory for the Allies 7 I .uftwaffe in Europe's skies. T Ce is deserved. according to late Gen. Carl A. -*Toots - Sp who commanded all the Army Forces in the European t When hostilities wereter. Fabulous "Without the B-17, we lost the war." That statement will pr F0 dui, esptult)eidn.:itiot rnt isne sh,y. ama hmY ewghi yen to 7 l a photo of The fitg'inie being ruffed 7 14 the Roe% hangar in 193$. out I lie / ort hecatne a sy mho! of the air BY C. V. CLINES ‘‘at- in I' urope—and a symbol of victor as well. ; AIR FORCE Magazin* July 1955 8.17 Flying Fortress bombers en route to their target during World War Ii. Much loved by their crews 10I :hair air- worthiness, fire- power and survivability the "Forts" came to sym- bolize the air war in Europe and are given well-deserved credit as major contributors to the Allied victory there. rti 4 • Crew members who flew Forts It's ironic that an airplane that "Hap" Arnold. Carl A. "Tooey" give them a special place in their contributed so valiantly to victory Spaatz, George C. Kenney, Hugh 3. hearts. Capt. Rowan T. Thomas. a and that changed the concept of Knerr, and Frank M. Andrews. • pilot in the 513th Bomb Squadron. aerial warfare and war itself nearly Their theory was a simple one: If an said in his book Born in Battle, died in its infancy. The decision to enemy ground force can, by aerial "There is a strong belief in the produce the B-17 was a gamble for bombardment, be denied access to minds of pilots and crews that their its maker. But that gamble later paid such vital fightingnecds as ammuni- 4 ships are hying personalities. and off handsomely in bigger and better tion. fuel, and weapons, that ground they love them for having brought plane, for peace and war. force cannot function as a lighting them safely thiough many dangers. The 13-17 started life as Boeing unit. This doctrine of strategic bom- • Each crew believes its ship is the Project 299, uhich was designed to bardment en% isioned a force of begin the world. meet an original US Army, specifi- long-range, heavy bombers that "I've known a crew to treat their cation for "a multiengined four to could protect themselves from en- ship as if it were a faithful dog with six place land type airplane" that emy fighters. whom they never want to part." he had a "high speed" at Ito® feet of This concept began to become re- wrote. When it growls. they knave. 250 mph, an endurance time of ten ality in 1934. when a budget for the something is %v rung with it: they hour,, and a service ceiling of development of a long-range bomb- think it doc•n't like the gas they arc 29.000 feet. Furthermore. it was to er was approved and negotiations feeding it or that the oil is irritating be "capable of maintaining les el well: begun with Martin. Douglas. it. flight with the design useful load at a and Boeing. The latter was awarded "Some pilots think of their ship as minimum of 7.000 feet altitude with a contract fora one - of- a- kind bomb 4 "home: - [he) had lived on it. one engine out." er designated X B I..R-1 vrennicn- worked over it. house-cleaned it. tal Bomber. Long-Range. Model 11. and kept • it as spic-and-span as a The Bombardment Concept It was later retlesnmated XB-15. family keeps its house. It's hard to Behind this specification were The XB-15, the largest aircraft make a man change ships in which years of um'. on a concept for bom- ever built in the US at that time, he has lived the most exciting days bardment by such forward-thinkers would prove too big and heavy for of his life. - of the call ■ 1930s as Henry II the engines then available. Concur- AIR FORCE Magazine din) -965 ready, however, a second bomber itself was structurally and aerody- The Memphis Belle specification was issued for a pro- namically sound. won a place in mili- duction multiengine aircraft capa- tary history as the A contract was subsequently is- first 8-17 to com- ble of carrying more than a ton of sued for thirteen YIB-17s for ser- p/cite twenty-live bombs at speeds greater than 200 vice tests. But more had luck missions. The mph over a distance of 2.000 miles. plagued the program. On December bomber and its ten- The winner of this contract would 7, 1936, the first Y1B-17 had an ac- man crew were re- turned to the Us M get an order for 220 planes. cident on landing, and once again June 1943 for a na- At the Boeing plant in Seattle. the program seemed threatened. tionwide war-bond Wash., this challenge became Proj- Was the airplane too big for pilots to tour. Memphis Belle ect 299. The designers saw it as a handle, as some critics said? is on permanent four-engine plane. smaller than the display in its name- Cooler heads prevailed. The test sake city as per- XB- 15 then being assembled but program was eventually successful, haps the most one that would bear a family re- with the"?" versions being sent on famous Fort of semblance to it. If accepted, it a number of record-setting flights to World War II. would be designated Y I B-17. test the advisability of the decision Meanwhile, Douglas and Martin de- to build the aircraft and the viability signers were looking at the same of the strategic bombardment con- specs and came up with twin-engine cept. designs that became the Douglas Setbacks still dogged the B-17 fol- DR-I and the Martin 146. low-on contracts, however, mainly because of cost_ Boeing had used its Rollout and Setbacks own funds to develop the aircraft Boeing's answer rolled out of the and was losing money. The program factory on July 28, 1935, and on Au- almost foundered again. gust 20 made a nonstop, 2,100-mile Hiller's invasion of Poland on his propaganda as "Flying Cof- flight from Seattle to Dayton. Ohio. September I. 1939. however, turned fins." at a speed of 233 mph, breaking all around the program. The Royal Air previous records for that distance. Force requested B-17s. and the Air The Believers Vindicated A contract seemed assured until Corps sent the first twenty of its Despite the seeming shortcom- October 30. when 299 crashed on initial order of thirty-eight to the ings. Hap Arnold and his strategic takeoff from Wright Field. killing British. bombardment advocates would not -- two pilots and badly injuring three Once again. bad luck intervened. give up. Because of prewar political , other occupants. At first, it was The RAF put the B-us on daylight pressures. the first 13-17 models ! thought that the crash had killed missions against German targets, were built primarily to defend the I Project 299 along with the project but suffered many aborts and acci- United States from the coastline to pilots. Later, it was found that the dents. Only about half of the sorties 100 miles offshore. Arnold asked for -t-L tail surface control locks had not scheduled resulted in bombs on pri- improvements to make the B-17 an been disengaged in the cockpit be- mary targets. The British began to offensive weapon. These included fore the takeoff roll. "Pilot error" call the Forts "Flying Targets"; more armor protection for the crew. had caused the accident; the plane Joseph Goebbels referred to them to increased firepower. self-sealing gas tanks. deicing boots, and improved engine cooling through the use of cowl flaps. These improvements resulted in the B-17E. which sported u new prolile because its empennage sec- ^ lion had been enlarged to accommo- date a tail gunner position and a ball turret underneath the belly. Heavier but faster, the E models wete sent to the Pacific and to the Eighth Air Force in England after the US en- tered the war. The subsequent F and G models featured further improve- ments, the most noticeable being the chin turret in the nose. As the Eighth Air Force grew in site and bet= inflicting heavy dam- age on German targets. the image of the 13-17 as an effective offensive weapon began to grow. In addition. Forerunner of the 8- 17. this Boeing 299 aircraft was introduced in 1934 as the largest Modeler* in the US and the fastest bomber ever. The prototype rolled out on it proved that it could absorb tre- July 20, 1935, and was dubbed the Flying Fortress right away. mendous punishment. Crew mem- 120 AIR FORCE Magazine r July 1985 97th Bomb Group that had collided with a German Messerschmitt 131-109 fighter. The fighter had knifed through the aft fuselage. al- most severing it from the rest of the plane and clipping ofT the left sta- bilizer and elesator.