This is Rockwell's E1 bomber. It is one of only four prototypes ever produced added been accepted by the United States Air Force. It would have been the fastest and highest flying bomber ever to go into service. The paradox is that the plane that ultimately did see service, although looking almost identical. Fluid half the speed of the V1, but was much more effective. The Air Force request for proposal, released in 1969, asked, among other things, for low altitude ride control and nuclear hardness, the ability of the aircraft electronic system to resist the effects of a nuclear explosion. Again, the North American company took the lead. Now under its new banner, Rockwell put forward a concept that embraced the latest innovations including Swing Wing technology, but in proportions of a long range heavy bomber. To prove the concept, an exhaustive wind tunnel program tested the shape, proportions, and function of Rockwell's proposed swing wing penetrator. In miniature, every flight characteristic and operational idiosyncrasy of what was to be the B1 project underwent the closest scrutiny. Throughout the verification process, models were used in many different ways. Here, another scale replica of the B1 using the same non radar reflective materials as the final aircraft is tested on a movable rig. Its ability to hide from radar coming from any angle is thoroughly examined. The biggest and most impressive model in this process was the final full scale mockup. This faithful representation of the designer's ideas, even the manufacturers and the Air Force, the feel of the final aircraft in those years before computer technology made it unnecessary. The mock up gave the last opportunity to explore the practicality of the concept before committing it to the expense of production. Even details like hinged doors and access panels are faithfully modeled so that the ground and flight crews alike can assess almost every physical detail on the finished aircraft. A variety of model weapon loads, both outside the aircraft and inside the bomb bays look absolutely convincing and provide the closest possible insight to the real thing. So does the layout of the cockpit, and even the swinging mechanism of the wing works just the way it will on the production version. This level of perfection is attest to the model maker, but manufacture of the real thing was to challenge the engineer far more. There have been problems with the early F111 wingbox, on which the swing wing pivoted. The B1 bomber would carry a load many times greater than the F111, so this tacit of its operation was tested in the most punishing way. As always with the United States military aircraft, the greatest consideration was placed on the services most indispensable asset. The preservation of aircrew was a major priority. And with the B1 project, it would prove a substantial challenge. Rockwell's engineers tackled the problem of crew survivability from a stricken plane in exactly the same way General Dynamics had with the F117 crew capsule. But for the B1 with the crew of four, you would have to be much larger and tolerances would be greater. There was always concern about the effects on aircrew, not only from the force of ejection, but more importantly from the impact of landing. The F1 elevens capsule had worked well, but at this scale and at the weight of 9000 pounds, the problems multiplied. There was a real danger of spinal damage to crews on impact. So rapid action airbags were developed to cushion the effects of the module as it hit the ground. Because of the nature of the B1 mission, the airbags will have to work on land and on water. Meanwhile, at Palmdale, CA, construction of the three prototypes began. The B1 project was now under way, even if its long-term future was far from certain. Funding, as in most major defense projects, was to be a continuing problem. Senate criticisms of the enormous costs of the V1 and the usual interservice competition from the military budget were as difficult for Rockwell executives to handle as the new technology was for Rockwell's engineers. Here the dedicated test rig is used to assess tolerance to stress to prove the integrity of the B1's basic design. That integrity would have to be confirmed before any plane with the performance expectations of the B1 could be allowed to fly in service. Eventually, after years of gestation and months of production. The first B one was displayed to the public on October 26th, 1974. Its sleek lines were emphasized by its glossy white finish. At the time, it was the largest swing wing aircraft in the world. The 1st V1, serial number 74-158, rolls down the Palmdale runway on December 23rd, 1974 for its first maiden flight. Originally plans called for five flying prototypes and two for structural testing, but because of cuts to the program, only three planes were ordered. The second and third of these were not to be available for slight testing for over a year, so on the 1st flight to the first plane more than usual precautions were taken without a ready replacement. The loss of this prototype could cause the whole program to collapse. Little surprise, then, that the first short flight to Edwards should be accomplished with wheels down. Nor was any attempt made to alter the position of the enormous swinging wings, but the two men crew did, or just the jet exhaust system. This complicated arrangement is sometimes referred to as a Turkey feathers, for obvious reasons. To control the final stages of up to 30,000 pounds of thrust with full afterburner is a difficult but vital function. Edwards is the traditional base for testing. Once called Moroc, this Air Force facility has been the home of many major test programs. Here, from the dry Californian desert, the first bee, one with the hopes of Rockwell and the Air Force in the balance, would undergo the most thorough flight testing. All the while, its detractors look for the slightest flaw to capitalize on. Already there had been problems with cost overruns. These had been added to by the government decision to produce fewer planes, substantially increasing the unit cost. Also, the decision to stretch the early delivery schedule created problems with the aircraft's 3000 subcontractors. Logistics must have been a nightmare. Although the first short flight of the B1 was a totally successful exercise, its future was still far from secure, and much of the real Flack the program was to encounter had little to do with the plane's performance. Rather, the arguments were of need, philosophy and politics. Did the Air Force really require a new bomber? How valuable was the recallable mandatory? Genuinely informed assessments of whether the B1 might be able to achieve its mission requirements were less easy to find, and against this backdrop of uncertainty, engineers and test pilots would have to prove Rockwell's super bomber. As the testing continued, the soul fly example of the B1 was carefully put through various stages of the test program. Soon, the enormously powerful and complex landing gear was to be retracted and extended. Years earlier, when Rockwell was still called North American and it was testing the XB70 Valkyrie on its first prototype mission, the Gear failed to retract properly, but the B1's initial attempt at a clean profile flight was a total success. With something as complicated as the undercarriage, tremendous effort is expended in testing prior to flight, but in the end, the one that really counts is in the air. Throughout 1975, Rockwell's single flying B1 ran a gauntlet of tests, including the crucial wing sweep function from straight wing to delta shape. There was a comprehensive testing of the four General Electric F101 fan jet engines and of the delicate task of aerial refueling necessary even for a plane with the range of the one. It was tested in high level flight at over 50,000 feet, then down to the deck for the all important below the radar barrier trials flying over 600 miles an hour at less than 200 feet. In these circumstances, the small veins of the low altitude flight control system were vital. Government cuts to the program meant that only three prototypes were to be built. The first of these was to fly and the second was for structural testing. At the end of 1975, the stress tests were complete and the aircraft was released to be fitted out for flying, but it would not be available till May the following year. In January of 1976, the third aircraft built for flight testing came online. This aircraft would concentrate on much of the complex avionics equipment used in the B1 program, especially the Boeing built offensive electronic system, a vital part in the B1 mission. Inside the cockpit of these prototypes, a complicated array of dials and meters surrounds the cathode ray tubes. If you look closely, you can see the fighter like control columns, unusual in the large aircraft. Directly behind the pilot and copilot, the other two crew members sit in their positions. The defensive and offensive systems operations used the high point of radar development not only to identify and target the enemy, but also to fend off attacking opposition fighters. It's a far cry from the air gunner huddled in the rear of the B17, the B1 crew flying comfort, but in combat, they'd face the same old risks fighting off the late 20th or 21st century bandits. As the testing of the first three aircraft continued, with the speed and altitude envelope being constantly pushed, a fourth plain authorized for August 1976 productions started its early stages of construction. With this latest be one under way, it seemed the program had gained significant momentum to survive its critics. With so much research behind it and so many of the problems solved, I appeared certain the Rockwell Bomber would continue into production. But then on June 30th, 1977, the recently elected Carter administration cancelled the project and the B1 program came to a halt. A unit cost of over 100 million was not the least of the reasons for cancellation. But there were others. One influential factor was the earlier success testing of a unique combination of two proven pieces of American hardware, a Minuteman missile, then an AC-5 transport aircraft if it could be demonstrated that the sea five was capable of launching the missile in flight. Then it could offer the Air Force an extremely cost effective form of recallable deterrent. The survivability of a massive transport aircraft as it approached the combat zone may not have been great. But the extra range offered by the missile may have combined to produce some form of deterrent if the experiment worked. Although it was not to be adopted as a complete system, the air launching of an ICC VM was nevertheless a spectacular achievement. It may yet have some potential. A much more concrete threat to the B1 came in the form of the air launched cruise missile where an LCM. These are clever and extremely deadly weapons. Before extension their wings and tail plain fold flush to the main body so that many such missiles can be carried under the wings or in the internal bomb bays of the B52. The AIC M program, which was quickly implemented by the Carter administration, gave the aging B50 twos a new lease on life as a suitable delivery system. The cruise missile uses small air breathing jet engines and with their extended wings and subsonic speed, obviously owe something to the original cruise missile, the German V1 of World War Two. But 30 years of technical evolution enabled the addition of concepts similar to the terrain following radar first used in the F111. This produced a weapon that was at the same time economical and effective, and considerably extended the range and survivability of the B52. One thing was certain after the Carter decision to cancel the B1 the B52, old as it was, would have to carry on as America's only long range recallable deterrent. But although more life could be squeezed out of those remarkable aircraft, he was equally obvious that in the long term, a new delivery platform of some kind was inevitable. Even with the support of dedicated bomber versions of the F111 and the ACM's. The heating power of America's Strategic Air Force was starting to wane. In spite of the discussed conversion of transport aircraft to carry cruise missiles, it had been known for many years that survivability over or even close to the enemy's airspace required specialized aircraft, and the missile carrying transport would be limited to a type of delivery far less challenging than the Air Force would expect from a B52 replacement. Clearly a long range penetrator was needed. Although the Carter decision had cancelled production of the B1, it had allowed some funds for the continued tests of the first three planes and to complete the building of the 4th. It was with these four aircraft that Rockwell skirted to resurrect the program. But much time had passed since the cancellation, and if the swing wing bummer was ever to reach production, it would be vastly different from the original concept. In some ways, time had worked into the plains favour. New ideas were now becoming available and with flying test vehicles on hand, their qualities would be quickly verified. The most important change to strategic thinking was the revised attitude toward high speed. The first parameter for the B1 had been that it could fly at over 50,000 feet and speeds in excess of Mach 2, twice the speed of sound, and then as it approached the enemy radar, the plane was expected to drop to 200 feet in high subsonic speed to make its final run undetected. But later thinking claimed that mock 2 speed performance was of no real strategic value. Low and slow, if 600 plus miles an hour is slow, was seen as the best way for a long range penetrator to reach its target. The reduction in top end speed requirement would enable other benefits to be introduced in the new plane and would also contain costs. Much greater emphasis was placed on making the plane invisible by using non radar reflecting materials. The new bomber would appear to be less than one. Percent of the size of a B52 on enemy radar screens. In flight, refuelling for optimum rage was given even greater priority as there had been unfounded criticism of the early planes results at low level. A major change was implemented for crew survival by deleting the crew ejection module, which had never been perfected in favor of conventional ejection seats quite suitable for the slower flying version. With revised specifications from Rockwell and the President need to solve the B52 replacement problem, the Reagan administration announced in October of 1981 the decision to build 100 Rockwell bombers to be called the B1B. The four earlier prototypes, which had done so much valuable work to prove the basic and later the modified concepts, would continue in test programs as the B1A. It is entirely possible that had these four original aircraft not been available. The entire B1B, the born again bomber project, would have never gone under way. The B1B was to have many new features, including a modified and vastly improved Bombay. These cavernous areas can now be adjusted to accommodate different weapons, loads and fuel requirements. Clearly, given the success the cruise missile had enjoyed, it would also have to be accommodated. Because the B1B would be the B52's replacement, the new aircraft would have to accommodate conventional and atomic devices in variety of sizes and configurations to fulfill a range of operations. Given this need for flexibility and the far reaching scope of the B1 project, it's hard to imagine that serious consideration was not so long ago given to use transports like the C5 to carry cruise missiles, and that this combination was supposed to replace the classic B52. As the B1A continued to prove the new performance specifications, work on the B1B's was well underway at Palmdale. The total cost of 100 B 1B's was to be 20 billion U.S. dollars for over 200,000,000 a plane. But with the lessons learned from the disruption of the earlier program, at least the B model was certain of completion and this meant, in the long term, the best value for the money. Much of the B1B's cost goes to provide its sophisticated avionics equipment takes 10 tenas, and radar dishes literally project from every angle of the fuselage, all gathering information for its computers to analyze. From this data, the crew will make decisions, decisions that may well resolve the outcome of a mission with historic importance and the fate of the aircraft and those that fly it could equally be at stake. All things considered. Perhaps the Rockwell Swing wing bomber is not so expensive after all. Many types of skill and technology are employed as the 10s of thousands of parts come together and the giant technological jigsaw puzzle that is the making of a modern bomber starts to take shape. By the middle of 1983, the 1st B1B production model was ready to make its public debut. Looking so very much like its predecessor, the new planes are hard to distinguish from those which had first appeared almost a decade earlier. Modified air intakes and a small window for the radar operators are subtle but effective clues for the untrained eye. However, the performance variations are not so subtle. The B1B, flying with half the speed potential of an A model, uses 21st century materials to become the most invisible to enemy fighters and missiles, and therefore is far more likely to complete its mission. And all the time it's on its deadly journey, it's providing tacticians with the flexible option of a last minute recall. Our role all either manned bomber can perform, but a role that was often understated in the past. Adding survived against competition that started with such crude weapons as the V1 flying bomb. And later evolved into the sophisticated and extremely deadly cruise missiles that would be carried by the aging B50 twos. And having been eclipsed by the development of ballistic missiles, which began with the German V2 rockets and over time developed into the powerful intercontinental ballistic missiles that have completely dominated the topic of nuclear delivery for over 30 years. The manned bomber survived by using yet another German innovation. The one of the variable swept wing. In the early 60s the idea, gravely refined and used in conjunction with terrain following radar, emerged as the F111, a very successful medium strike bomber. And in the early 70s the concept was further developed into the B1, the ultimate high speed long range meant bomber, but it was to take another 10 years and the arrival of still more advanced construction materials and another generation of avionics before the later model, the B1B was able to reach service. A masterpiece of high technology, the best that aerospace industry could offer, had finally arrived. It continued to fly well into the 21st century in Delissea became a legend similar to the B52 wave replaced. But clearly the B1B, the born again bomber, was already one of the world's greatest planes in many ways. Development of the B1, parallel development to the very first strategic bomber, the B17, and that the B17 also had to deal with an array of problems. The history of the B17 began when the Army Air Corps circulated a specification for a multi engine bomber. They probably only expected manufacturers to respond with a twin engine design, but the Boeing company showing what was to be characteristic foresight. Offered A4 engine plane as advanced as it may have been, Boeing's model 299, as the prototype was known, was not very well received. An accidental crash in the early trials and the belief in some quarters that a large 4 engine plane would be too difficult to fly in combat cost Boeing the initial order. And yet, certain factions in the Air Corps encouraged Boeing to continue development of what was, for its time, a massive aircraft. Using much of its own money and fighting government cutbacks, the company continued to develop what was ultimately to be a most important plane. It's August 17th, 1943. Just another day for the men of the US Army Air Corps in England. Dawn breaks over the mist shrouded countryside of East Anglia to reveal a scene of bustling activity. Ground crewmen hurry about making last minute preparations for the day's mission. Well, hands are loaded, engines are tuned, machine guns are cleaned while every round of ammunition is checked and rechecked. In nearby Quonset huts, thousands of aviators anxiously await the start of today's briefing. Silently they prayed that they'll be given a milk run, perhaps a rail yard in France, German airfield and Belgium. But when their grim faced commanders stepped before them, they know that today's mission will be a rough. 9:00 o'clock coming around. It was a modern marvel, armed with 13 machine guns and capable of flying 2000 miles or more with its load of deadly explosives tucked inside its Bombay. The world had never seen such power in an aircraft, and only the most advanced nation could have even conceived of such a destructive weapon. Each Flying fortress carried aloft 6 miles of electrical wiring within its metal frame. Its generators could light all the rooms in a good sized hotel. Each B17 carried enough steel for 160 washing machines and enough aluminum for 50,000 percolators. The rubber used in its wing deicers could retread almost 1000 automobile tires. Each B17 cost almost a half, $1,000,000, a huge sum for the time. The B17 was truly an American weapon. Complex, expensive, huge, larger than life. And it had been built for a uniquely American role. Daylight precision bombing, a role that was hoped would shorten the war by knocking out factories vital to Germany's war effort. And on this day in August of 1943, the B Seventeens and their crews would set out to prove that they could get the job done. Far from a milk run to France, the targets for today would be the Regensburg Messerschmidt plant and the ball bearing factories around Schweinfurt. Schweinfurt had dozens and dozens of ball bearing plants in factories around the city. In fact, Schweinfurt produced between 30 and 40% of all the ball bearings used by Germany and its allies. So the philosophy was if you could knock out the ball bearing factories around Schweinfurt. The German Army and Air Force actually and Navy would grind to a halt because they wouldn't have ball bearings, which was a key component to any mechanical item. The 8th Air Force would be sticking its head right into the Tiger's jaws. And the tiger would be waiting. With the briefing concluded, the bomber crews climb aboard trucks and jeeps for the short drive to their own flying forts. The B seventeens are ready to go. The mechanics and armorers have worked through the night. Make sure that every bomber is fit to fly. The plan calls for two groups of bombers to coordinate their attacks on Regensburg and Schweinfurt. The 4th Bomb Wings 139-B. Seventeens would go in, first hitting the Messerschmitt factory, then flying on to North Africa in an effort to confuse the German defenses. Meanwhile, close behind the 4th Bomb Wing would come the first bomb Wings 222 flying fortresses. They would sneak in behind the 4th and destroy the ball bearing factories around Schwindt. Bad weather ruined the plan. The look brother almost ruined the mission. 2017's form up over England before heading out toward Germany. The 4th Bomb Wing is already 90 minutes late. They'll be lucky to reach North Africa by sundown. As the 1st 139 bombers cross into Belgium, the 2nd wave of bombers still hasn't even left the ground back in East Anglia. In fact, the first bomb wing would be delayed five hours, the attackers would go in piece meal and the loop vaffa would tear them to pieces. The 4th Bomb Wing is attacked first. Scores of German Messerschmitt 10 nines and Farka Wolf One 90s rip into the bomber formations. They concentrate on the trailing squadrons in the 15 mile long bomber stream. The Germans threw something on the order of 300 fighters at these 147B SEVENTEENS and the low group was the most vulnerable. And the 100th Bomb Group earned its reputation that day that has stuck with him for 60 years, 5060 years as being. Known as the hard luck outfit, they called it the bloody 100. Convinced that the B Seventeens will soon be turning back for England, the look profit ground controllers scramble every fighter in Northwest Europe. They're surprised when the 4th Bomb wing head South toward Africa, but they have plenty of targets anyway. For right at that moment, the Schweinfurt bound Boeings of the first bombing reached the camp. They're set upon by hundreds of German fighters. The B seventeens are hacked out of the sky with frightening frequency. One American gunner watches in horror as 12 bombers fall in flames around him, spilling white parachutes all over the sky. One combat wing loses a third of its plane, entire squadrons are shot up, and only the Boeing's inherent rugged durability keeps the disaster from getting any worse. Of the 222B Seventeens and the second raid, 196 reach Swinford. So shot up and shocked are the crews that they scatter their bombs all over the city. The ball bearing factories are hit but not knocked out. The area where. The ball bearing industry is located was definitely. For. First impression? Devastated. But as I walked from the air base, there was no public transportation which my foot at that time to the railroad station I noticed that certain sections. Of the big factory, there was still steam coming out. There were still operating, still working. The battered survivors turned for home and fight their way back out of Germany. Those flying ports that still remain in the formations are almost all peppered with holes. Flaque has claimed a few bombers, but most have been hit or downed by aggressive fighter attacks. Just before dark, the bombers reach home and England. The sky is filled with battered B seventeens limping home. Some of the bombers reach E Anglia with one or two engines out. They crash land on any available airfield as ambulances and fire trucks raced toward their shattered hulks. Precision daylight bombing, the very reason the B17 had been invented in the 1st place, had failed in the face of Germany's deadly air defenses. Still, the 8th Air Force's leadership would not give up. The bombers would soon fly again. The bloody losses over Regensburg and Schweinfurt can be traced back to the US Army Air Corps concept of strategic bombing that evolved during the 1920s. By destroying arms factories, aircraft assembly plants, ball bearing plants and other such strategic targets and enemies, army and Air Force wouldn't have the means to carry on the fight. He would be forced to surrender as their nation's wartime economy crumbled under the weight of this precision bombing campaign. It wasn't until 1935 that the Americans developed a bomber capable of carrying out such a grandiose strategy. Or B17 was A4 engine heavy bomber designed in the mid 1930s by the Boeing Aircraft Corporation. And its primary role was to destroy. Enemy industrial targets through high altitude precision bombing, and in that role it was uniquely suited, turned out to be one of the best aircraft probably ever built for the role that it was designed for. Mainly because First off, at high altitudes the B17 was an amazingly stable aircraft. The reason for that was the fact that it had a very large wing with a large wing area. The plane was very stable in flight. It was an excellent bombing platform and most importantly to the cruise was the fact that because it was stable, they could fly in very tight formations so they could stick together. The Boeing Model 299 prototype of the Flying Fortress flew for the first time in August of that year. It would take several more years of development before the first production models reached operational squadrons, but when they did, they were the best and most modern bombers in the world. For its time, the B17 was huge. With its 100 foot wingspan and 70 foot length, it towered over other late 30s aircraft. Later versions, including the B17 G, came equipped with four right Cyclone radial engines that cranked out 5520 total horsepower. And the fortress needed every bit of power to drag aloft its typical bomb load of 14500 pound bombs over a distance of 3600 miles. Top speed was about 290 mph, but in tight formations and heavily loaded. The Boeing cruised at about 170. Umm. With the heavy defensive armament of 13 machine guns, the Air Corps believed that the B17 could successfully fight off enemy interceptors without help from escorting fighters. This was a major issue as the Air Corps didn't have any fighter aircraft capable of flying long distances with the bombers. But since the Flying Fortress had so many 50 and 30 caliber machine guns, such a long range escort fighter seemed unnecessary. The B seventeens would strike their targets alone, flying in tight, mutually protecting formations. In 1943, the 8th Air Force unleashed its first sustained bombing campaign against Germany. Codenamed Operation Point Blank, the B seventeens were sent to knockout the third Reichs aircraft in distress. By destroying the loop off his production centers, the 8th Air Force would gain control of the air over Europe. With that in hand, the bombers could be sent against other strategic targets, striking at the heart of the Reich's ability to wage war. Point Blank was the first clash between the American Pre War doctrine and the realities of modern air con. The results were soon cleared. But the Americans doggedly persisted in putting their theories into practice at the expense of thousands of brave young men. Last time we dropped the bombs we started getting. Hit. Real close. One engine got a hit. Started losing oil. Waited till it was not enough oil pressure. It couldn't. Couldn't. Whether the engine? So then they went. They windmill just from the air. And eventually they may. Twist the shaft off and the prop will come off. God knows where it'll go. Or they can shake a wing loose, I guess. Not a very good situation. And I don't remember if it was in that engine or another one the fire started. I don't know if they got that one out or not. And apparently the. Underside of the 17 was pretty well shot up, sort of dropped out of the formation. Start losing altitude. And. Wasn't too long till the pilot rang the bailout bill. That was it for that mission. The most important flaw in the precision Daylight Bombing campaign was the lack of a long range escort fighter. Even the B seventeens, numerous defensive guns could not protect it from determined German fighter attack. The Luftwaffe was soon learned to hit the B17 formations from the front, which proved to be the weak point in the Boeing's defensive systems. Sometimes 40 or 50 ME 10 nines or FW one 90s would swoop down at the bombers in a blazing head on pass aiming for the cockpit. Engines. Nothing could stop such devastating attacks in the fortresses took appalling losses. Our biggest concern really, in all honesty. Where the young men that were over there before I got there, they had a lot of fighters that they had to contend with. The average mission completions that they had, I think was about 7. And here we finished 35, so that tells you something right there. If you. Lost an engine? Or if you feathered an engine that was very apparent to the Germans. And they'd pick on you right now. And they. They like to make holes in information and they could knock a plane out of formation. You were definitely crippled. They knew how to do that. Without long range fighter escorts, the 8th Air Force's B17 groups lost 40% of their crews during 1943. Only 1/4 of the bomb crews were able to fly a full tour, 25 missions and go home that year. An average crew flew 5 to 7 missions before getting shot down. Some who flew longer usually came home more than once with a shot up bomber and injured crewman aboard. Randall Jarrell, an eighth Air Force airman, wrote a poem that captured all the horror and intensity he and his fellow Flying Fortress crews faced in a piece titled the death of a Ball Turret Gun. From my mother's sleep I fell into the state and I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. 6 miles from Earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black Flack in the nightmare fighters. When I died, they washed me out of the turret with a hose. Such losses had a profound effect on morale and on the emotional health of the remaining B17 crews. With Buddies going down on every mission, the men became fatalistic. They clung to good luck charms and became increasingly superstitious. Others gradually lost their combat edge as battle exhaustion wore them out. In some cases, men broke down entirely and became psychiatric casualties. About 4% of all Eighth Air Force losses in World War Two were psychiatric cases. These were men who performed their duty admirably until the stress and strain of constant combat finally broke their emotional back. Such men were called Flack, happy by their peers, or said to have the back of wolf jitters. During the war, the 8th Air Force suffered 50,000, roughly 50,000 KIWIA&MIA. Tremendous amount of guys lost their lives or were physically injured. But also as the stress and strain of combat began to manifest themselves on these crews, it became clear that the 8th Air Force was going to have to do something about psychiatric casualties. They were starting to lose crews, starting to lose pilots, starting to lose Gunners to emotional trauma. And so one of the things that the the 8th Air Force did was they set up a series of rest homes. For crews that had been through particularly horrendous ordeals or later on in the war, they were sent there just as a matter of course. These were called flat leaves and they go back to these country manners way out of the way from any military installations and they would be able to eat and relax and that actually helped get some of the emotional problems so that the crews were suffering under control. Now this would never threatened operations for the 8th Air Force, it was always very small. Number of the the crews. Wartime reports had it that of every thousand men that flew combat with the 8th Air Force, 42 were going to become psychiatric casualties of 1 sort or another. And they were they were called permanent psychiatric cases if they were not returned to flight duty within 15 days during the war. About 4000 airmen and pilots fell into this category. Through these brutal months, the crews learned to love their B seventeens. The Flying Fortress had a ruggedness that sometimes defied imagination. They came home with two, sometimes 3, engines knocked out and great gaping holes torn in their aluminum skins. Control shot away, landing gear ruined, hydraulics blown out, flaps gone, and chunks of wing or tail hacked out by cannon shells didn't stop the rugged Flying fortress. They came home limping, shattered and ruined, but still able to get their crews safely on the ground one final time. Hundreds of B seventeens were returned to England never to fly again. They would be dragged off to the boneyards where their broken bodies would be picked clean of spare parts that could be used to keep the other planes fly. Their crews, these faithful planes, were utterly beloved. We've flown on 2 engines, but you're coming down yell. That makes a lot of difference. You don't have fuel, you don't have bombs, and you're coming down the hill and you go long ways. But they will be 17 was a tough son of a gun. It can just get. Hold all over it and it's still going to come back. The B17 just had a great big old slab and it flew real slow. And it wasn't real high compression so. So it could take a lot of punishment. One way the crews expressed their deep feelings toward their planes was through nose art. Nose art had had some significance. It was a a means to personalize. A very impersonal weapon. A military aircraft is not a very personable personal thing, especially when 12,000 of them just like it, are flying around in the world. So this was their way, the crews way to put their unique stamp on their aircraft and make it their own. And once that happened, that aircraft ceased to become just a collection of metal bolts and welded pieces of aluminum. It became almost a living, breathing part of their, their integrated crew. And so when you talked to crews, who. Had their own aircraft for an extended period of time they. Feel very, very strongly, very passionately towards that airplane, especially the B seventeens that were so faithful and so rugged, and the crews will talk about their aircraft almost as if they were they were people. With worn out crews and demoralized bomb groups, the 8th Air Force continued to attack targets in Germany even after the August 17th Regensburg Schweinfurt debacle. Post War analysis later confirmed that the destruction at Regensburg cost the Germans some 1000 Emmy 10 Nines in lost production. But the Americans didn't realize was that the German aircraft industry was expanding at such a tremendous rate that those thousand planes were Insignia. Never once during the war did the Germans suffer from a lack of interceptors. In October of 1943, the 8th Air Force launched another concerted effort against targets in Germany. On October 8th, the B Seventeens bombed Bremen, losing 30 out of 399 planes. The next day, 36 more B seventeens were lost attacking aircraft factories at Acklam and Marion Park. The missions continued and the stress on the cruise grew even worse. In one week, from October 2nd through the 9th, the Germans shot down or damaged beyond repair over 100 flying ports. The 8th Air Force lost almost 1000 men and still the worst was yet to come. On October 10th, the B17 struck monster. The lift off a bored in on the bombers, concentrating on the low squadrons of the 100th Bomb Group. Flying a straggly, loose formation, the 100th turned out to be easy meat. Within minutes, the entire group was virtually wiped out. Heading Munster cost another 36B SEVENTEENS and over 300 Americans. The lesson from Munster was clear. Flying in loose formations would get many men killed. There was one group that flew pretty scraggly. Formations. Yes, elements or formations? Some of them, consequently, were hit harder than ours. Our group flew good tight formations they wanted the wing of. The side plane tucked right in behind the wing and in the waist of the other. In other words, tight elements of three by having those wings all tucked in, concentrating the firepower. From all the guns aboard each ship. Yeah, it was a pretty good deterrent that the. Germans wouldn't come in too close in and attacked us. They like to go after the disabled planes that had drifted off from them and got back here by themselves. I think one reason that our. The group didn't. Have the casualties that some of the groups, some of the squadrons. As we were a little knot up during the sky. I could always spot our group. It would just. It is tight. Then on October 14th, the crews assembled in the briefing rooms to learn they would be going after Schweinfurt once again. The news was received by a chorus of groans and shocked gasps amongst the exhausted crews. Still, they climbed aboard their B seventeens to do their duty, knowing that today many of them would not be coming home. They flew into a Holocaust of flak and fighters. The Germans were waiting for them and as soon as their short ranged P-47 escorts turned for home, the 10 nines and one 90s attacked. They swarmed through the B17 formations, blasting the bombers out of the sky with cannons, rockets and machine guns. Well, we were going into the ball bearing plant flying for and it was pretty tough going heavy Flack. He'd shot that for another direction and I don't really know what happened except some of. People in our squadron that saw us get shot down and they said. Well, I'm rockets. Charlotte it was obviously a lost cause and. The pilot was losing it. And so. They jump out. And I had the last shot. That they hit us with had concussion, had blown me back against the bulkhead and unplugged my. Oxygen and my intercom system. And I was a little while. When I finally come through, I realize I didn't hear anybody and my oxygen thing wasn't moving and so we were only 18,000 feet that day. So I went back to the cockpit. And I'm the only guy on that airplane. Everybody else had jumped up. And so I run back and snap my parachute on and jump out. They had this big thing that they've been trying to stop with. The Germans were shooting Americans in parachutes, and the Americans were shooting Germans and parachutes, and both sides were trying to stop it. And here come 2M E 10 nines right at me. They kept getting closer and closer. When they got almost up to me. They rigged up like that. And circled right tight around me and both of them saluted. So I saluted and they went away and so I just landed and 2nd growth timber was no harder than jumping off the net. As the raid drove deeper into Germany, the Luftwaffe responded by throwing everything that could fly into the air at. Even obsolete Ju 87 Stuka is attacked the B seventeens, dropping aerial bombs into their tight formations. One bomb group, the 305th, lost 12 planes out of its 27 before even reaching the target area. Those B seventeens that reach Swinford dropped their bombs as best they could through a growing pall of smoke that partially obscured the ball bearing factory. Entire groups missed their targets and their bombs fell all over the countryside. So many German fighters had attacked the flying courts that most of the American Gunners were now running out of ammunition. Meanwhile, the German 109 and 190 squadrons were able to land to rearm and refuel in time to attack the bombers again. Low on ammo, the desperate bomber crews turned for home and endured hour after hour of deadly fighter attack and heavy Flack. By the time they reached home, the surviving crews were burnt out and beyond the breaking point. Of the 229-B17 sent out that pay, 60 were shot down, seven were written off and 138 more were damaged. Over 630 men of the mighty eighth were either killed, wounded or captured. In two weeks of operations that October, the 8th Air Force had lost over 200 bombers, nearly half its total force. Worse, there was little to show for the terrible casualties. Something had to be done or the Germans would win the Air War. The Army Air Corps had learned its lesson. It was time to throw the pre war book away and figure out a new way to hit the Germans. The war would not be won with a quick knockout blow against Germany's wartime industries. Rather it would take a long sustained campaign to meet Eighth Air forces objectives. And to sustain such an operation the bombers would need long range fighter escort. Well, initially the 8th Air Force only had P-47 groups available and they had a very limited range. They could only get to just about the German frontier and back, so they were not able to escort the bombers all the way to target. That posed an increasing problem as Luftwaffe caused more and more casualties to the 8th Farmer Commission. So during the summer of 1943, the 8th Air Force began investigating the use of drop tanks, external fuel tanks that could be slung underneath the fuselage and the wings of their P40 sevens. So they got a very large fuel tanks up to 108 gallon tanks I believe is among the ones that they use and that was actually able to extend the P40 sevens radius of action by 100 miles. So they were able to actually go inside Germany and actually could get 375 miles out from from England and back. So that had a major effect on the on the Air war because the the P40 Sevens now didn't have to just turn around over Belgium, they could actually tangle with the little bubble over Germany but at the same time. After the Schweinfurt second Schweinfurt raid, the 8th Air Force began demanding long range fighters and of course the only one that was available at the time was the P38. So in October of 43, the very first P38 began escorting the bombers and while they were not as effective as the P-47 or later the P51, the 30 eights could at least provide some protection for the bombers and they could actually go to Berlin and back. With winter closing in the Eighth, Air Force flew less frequently in the final two months of 1943. When it did, it confined its attacks mainly to targets outside of Germany. The B seventeens would wait for better weather. In the meantime, the 8th Air Force would get new leadership, and they would change America's approach to the Air War. In October, General Carl Spaatz took over command of all strategic bombing operations in Europe. He at once realized that the only way to win the Air War was to drive the loop. Lava out of the sky. The flying fortresses had become baked. At the end of February 1944, a five day break in the winter weather allowed the 8th Air Force to launch attacks deep into Germany against aircraft factories and airfields. The Luftwaffe a rose to the defense and waded into the bomber stream with a vengeance. But then the Lightnings, Thunderbolts and Mustangs protecting the B seventeens pounced on the Germans, savaging their ranks. While the bombers took heavy losses, the liftoff has interceptor units were badly mauled during the weeklong battle. 2 weeks later, the 8th Air Force went after Berlin. On the 6th of March, the Germans managed down 69 B, seventeens over Berlin. In doing so, however, the Lifafa broke its own back. As they desperately tried to defend the Nazi capital, the 10 nines and one 90s were set upon by American fighters and blasted from the sky. On March 8th, the B Seventeens returned to Berlin and once again a violent battle rage. When it was over, the German interceptor force had been crippled. Somebody yelled my things and I looked around. My gosh, the I saw the Lightnings. And. They came down and all in a sudden I saw streamer SCUBA says. Oh boy, somebody's at my tail and I went a little lower and by that time I heard a loud bang and he had cut off part of the right wing and just cut the and instinctively put her down. When the 8th Air Force returned to Berlin the next day, hardly a German fighter was seen, much to the delight of the bomber crews. But the next three months, the Battle of Attrition played out in all its bloody finale. The Germans lost more pilots than they could possibly replace, while the American units were reinforced regularly and never suffered from a shortage of crews. It was a race to see which side would die faster and which side would run out of warm bodies to throw into the fray. It was a race the Germans could not win. From big week to the end of May 1944, the Lifafa lost 28 of its top aces. During big week alone. The Loop buffa lost 33% of its fighter force and 17.9% of its pilots defending the right man. Which proved even worse for the Germans, as they lost fully 56% of their fighter aircraft and 22% of their remaining pilots while trying to defend Berlin. Such casualties could not be sustained. The Germans started the year with 2283 available fighter pilots by May 2262 had been killed or wounded, a 99% loss rate. The Luftwaffe was being bled white and it was the 8th Air Force that was causing the bleeding. While Allied fighters blasted the leftover from the sky, the bombers still had targets to hit. Former B17 crewman less Hardy takes us on a typical mission deep within the heart of the third White. They'd wake you up, probably. One o'clock 2:00 o'clock in the morning. And run you down for chow. Breakfast and. We didn't get eggs. Somewhere I read that. On a combat day, you got real eggs. They missed us. We got. It was powdered eggs, but. The cooks did a good job on it. And then by the time you went through briefing and. Got your flying gear on your heated suit? You had to wear heated suits and you'd freeze to death up there. And. Then assembled out at your airplane and. Got the information from your officer as if they had anything. Navigator usually tell us what the weather was supposed to be over the target. And. Then we'd form up over England, which was quite often dangerous because it might be, it might be going through clouds of. It was very foggy. They didn't even attempt it, but. It wasn't unusual to have aired air collisions while we were forming that. But eventually we get formed up and information. Head across the channel. And. You were stuck in that airplane for quite a few hours when you went to Berlin. No. Nothing to eat. I think they gave us a candy bar one time. They gave us an orange. It works real good at 28,000 feet, 60 below. We could have thrown those at the enemy. Getting to Berlin quite often, we. Encounter Flack because they had their 80 eights mounted on rail cars and trucks and they moved them around and I swear they knew where we were, what our flight pattern was, because quite often we get flagged on the way and you just, you didn't dodge around it. Had to stay on your course, but as you approached Berlin. If some other group was ahead of you, the air was black with Flack and. That's what you had to fly through. On the bomb run. The Bombardier. The pilot turned to. Thing on autopilot so the Bombardier controls the. Airplane on the flight over the target, because he's the one who's aiming to. Sperry at the ground. So he just flew through that like. That was the only way to go. It was very. Exciting. I'd like to have been able to shoot at something. But of course couldn't do that. I could see plenty good through the. Top of my RadioShack. It was wide open. The two little windows on the side weren't very good for. Seeing things, but I see enough. Probably all I wanted to. With the look buffer on its knees, the 8th Air Force turned its attention to supporting the D-Day invasion subsequent campaign in Normandy. The flying fortresses hit coastal emplacements and other targets along the beaches just prior to the landings, then took part in carpet bombing operations against German troops. One such mission virtually destroyed the German Panzer lair division in July of 1944 and helped pave the way for the American breakout from the beachhead. Once the Allied armies broke out of Normandy and began driving toward Germany, the 8th Air Force turned to new targets in hopes of shortening the war. Up until early September of 1944, the heavy bombers had mainly attacked aircraft factories, uboat assembly plants or pens, docks and ball bearing factories. In May, the bombers had begun hitting oil refineries in synthetic fuel plants. D-Day delayed hitting anymore of these targets until the fall of 1944, but in September the Mighty 8th returned to Germany and systematically destroyed the Reich's ability to process fuel. The attacks were an incredible success. By December the 8th Air Force had knocked out almost half of Germany's refineries, precipitating a fuel crisis within the German army. Just when the vermarc needed mobility the most, its panzers ground to a halt for want of oil and gas. Desperate measures were tried to get around this problem, including the construction of charcoal burning engines the tanks could use, but they were too little too late. The Flying Fortress had at last delivered the knockout. The pre war bomber advocates fervently believed it could do at the same time the eighths bombers were used to attack marshalling yards and rail centers throughout Germany. Mainly most of my missions in those days were the marshalling yards. We were trying to destroy the transportation system and so they couldn't move anything around by train and. We did. We really destroyed the area because later on when I went to. Germany took me 5 days to go. On train because they had to go all over the place, because they had to go where the tracks were still left. But that was mainly what we were doing at the end of the war is bombing the tracks, train tracks, marshalling yards, destroying any moving stock. By the end of the war, most of everything that the Germans had would be was already destroyed. It was really destroyed. The destruction of the Raikes rail net proved to be one of the flying fortress's most significant contributions to the war effort. German industry depended on the railroads to deliver raw materials and carry away finished products. By late 1944 the railroad system at all but collapsed under the weight of B17 borne bombs. Even the barest necessities could not be transported effectively via rail by the end of 1944. Coal the lifeblood of German. Industry piled up near the mines with no way to get it to the factories that so badly needed it by January. This caused a full scale collapse of the German economy. And still, even as Nazi Germany twisted in its death throes, the B17 crews continued to take heavy losses. No longer were German interceptors much of a threat. With thousands of bombers and thousands of fighters ranging across the Reich, the look VAFA had been all but swept from the sky. Lack however was a different matter entirely. The Germans concentrated hundreds of anti aircraft batteries around crucial oil targets until some factories were defended by over 1000 heavy guns using radar guidance. Late War German anti aircraft fire brought down thousands of American aircraft fighters, medium bombers and even the high flying B seventeens. There was another air raid in the afternoon and here came the 8th American Air Force. I think it was. Multi effort because I think I counted over 90 planes or 100 planes B seventeens. And the German aircraft artillery apparently had them just right. All the sudden I saw one bomber blow up and. And parachute, parachutes and another one. And at one time I counted 27. Parachutes. Plaque became the worst menace the B17 crews faced. Our biggest fear was the Flack because when I got there we were really making strides on the ground and we were pushing them. The the Germans back, which time they're bringing all their flag guns back and concentrating them in in the cities. So when we started into a target and you looked up ahead and it looked like a piece of white paper with a drop in ink drops down all over the paper, it was just a massive air space of black Flack burst. We're losing a lot of planes because of that too. It was a milk run, which is supposed to be an easy mission just across the channel. To. A Luftwaffe airfield in. Pretty sure it was France now it could have been Belgium, but hard to remember. Anyhow, 3 airplanes this big mission. And we went storming over there. I think we even left at a decent time in the morning. And. As you say, a milk run. That means you're not supposed to have any trouble. Well, we didn't until we got over the target on our bomb run and they cut loose. Very accurate anti aircraft. Remember last year? Stuff all over us. We were flying on #2 spot. The airplane on the starboard side of us took a hit. Must have been oxygen tanks. Something got fire, and of course through the oxygen it's. Holocaust. Well, we could see the guys, some of them bailing out. I don't remember how many shoots we saw. But what really impressed me, this plane kept flying right along beside us and the pilot who had flown a practice mission with tall. Slim guy, real tall. He crawled out the pilot window because of the fire. I'm sure he couldn't get out. I don't know how a guy even got through that. Pilot window. And reached inside and got his parachute chest. Chest back. And slid off of the wing. And I didn't know whether he got his shot on or not. In fact, it was reported that he did not. Later your so later I found out he had. Made it to the ground and no problem. It's unbelievable. It couldn't register what I hadn't seen or hadn't seen. We had our wingman, right office of us. We were in the target area. And. Hadn't been hit ourselves and all of a sudden there was something that caught my attention on on our right side. Looked over there and the plane that was supposed to been there wasn't there anymore. I looked around to see, well maybe went up a little higher and I looked backwards and it wasn't any behind. I looked down and I couldn't find that plane's position and I looked again and I could see parts of the plane. Falling and gotten a direct hit I guess must in the whole Charger 2 the Mac must have hit him right in the. Blew him up. That was, you know, that there it was and there it wasn't. I don't think there was a soul probably got out of that plane. By the end of the war, over 12,000 B Seventeens had been produced. The B17G, with its additional twin gun chin turret, was the most numerous version, with 8680 being built for decades. Historians have argued the pros and cons of the strategic bombing campaign in Europe. All agree that the B17 didn't win the war against Germany alone, as the bombing advocates had theorized before the war. But the B17 still played a key role in the victory over Hitler. The bombers wrecked Germany's oil industry, ensuring the defeat of the Vermark by the Allied armies. More importantly, however, the B Seventeens drew out the loop buffer in the spring of 1944 during big Week and the Berlin raids. In doing so, the bombers helped Schieve complete air superiority over Western Europe, as the German interceptor force ruined itself defending Berlin from the thousands of flying corpuses and the fighters the 8th Air Force was able to put into the air. This bloody victory set the stage for the Normandy invasion. Or had the allies not had complete control of the air, D-Day might never have taken place. When the war ended in Europe, the B Seventeens heyday came to an end. By 1945, the Flying Fortress was a 10 year old design. Rugged, tough and always a warrior, the B17 nevertheless could not survive in a world that would soon see jet fighters, atomic weapons and guided missiles. The 8th Air Force's 2000B seventeens were collected together in fields all over England, where they were either flown back to the United States or scrapped on site. And thus the B seventeens last contribution may have been its most significant. These majestic plans were melted down and their metal used to help rebuild Western Europe. The destruction they had once wrought was repaired by their very skins. A noble end indeed. Today only a few B seventeens exist to remind future generations of the air war that raged so many years ago. Each Flying Fortress is a treasure, for they remain lonely signposts of the struggle that once raged in the bloody skies of Europe. Battles on land leave scars in the Earth to mark their passage into history, but the sky over Europe reveals no secrets and tells no tales. The sky remains unchanged, unchangeable as it had for the eons prior to those black torn years of World War Two. In these skies, Titans once clashed. An epic struggle for survival unfolded amidst these clouds. With stakes so high, entire nations would be destroyed. Young men by the hundreds of thousands were flung into the maelstrom of this desperate battle as the fighting reached its bitter climax. Over 60,000 young Americans and Germans would never return home. Their lives snuffed out in the air over Nazi held Europe. In the end, through their courage to clamber aboard their faithful B seventeens for mission after mission, these men of the Mighty 8th Air Force helped free Europe from the dark tyranny of Hitler's Germany. Their legacy of freedom and of peace will never be forgotten.
