The Importance Of B-17s In European Theater

The B-17, which was an American heavy bomber, was a massive success in the European Theater. According to America in the Air War, B-17s shot down 23 German fighters using defensive 12.7mm machine guns for every 1,000 sorties over Europe (a sortie was one mission by one plane). B-24s, another large bomber, had only 11 for every 1,000 sorties. Most B-17s in Europe were in the 8th Air Force, bombing German airplane parts factories. However, they were not completely invincible. Before long range fighters like the P-47 of P-51 were developed, B-17s took terrible losses from German fighters. On one mission alone, there were over 400 bombers lost. Flak was also a large destroyer of B-17s. Flak is a shell that, at a preset altitude, exploded and threw shrapnel throughout the air. The P-51 Mustang, one of the best performing fighters in World War 2, escorted the B-17 on its bombing runs in Germany. It started development when the British, looking to purchase another order of P-40 Warhawks, found that all of the Warhawks being produced were already ordered. North American Aviation offered to build the British a better fighter in six months using the same engine as the P-40, and the British accepted. The first XP-51s delivered had good performance at
It is a very factual text, and it has many quotes from generals or pilots from this time. For example, a quote from Robert Johnson, one of the leading fighter pilots in the war, described a fight with a Messerschmitt 109 on page 104. “The lead Messerschmitt suddenly stopped smoking. It was a complete giveaway; I knew then he had cut power.” There are also photographs of many of the planes described about in the book. It is very in-depth, and covers the Air Force from the time before the United States entered the war to the period after Japan surrendered. Both the European and Pacific conflicts are