BATTLESHIPS OF
THE AIR
LEAD THE WAY TO
VICTORY
Regardless of the fact that this country was at peace and our military policy a defensive one, our farseeing Air Corps leaders continued to build American air power around the heavy, long-range bomber. As the heavy bomber was primarily an offensive weapon, many Americans believed the Army’s development of it to be contrary to our declared policy. As a result, we did not build great numbers of bombers. However, with the small number that we did have, our Army aviators made great progress in the technique of high-altitude bombing.
As in all branches of the United States Army, great stress was laid on good marksmanship. Army aviators were trained to hit the mark with their bombs just as the infantryman does with his rifle. Other countries developing heavy bombers were satisfied if their airmen dropped a great many bombs in a given target area. In this country the development of the bombsight enabled our aviators to hit a target with great accuracy from high altitudes. This is called precision bombing. It was also known as pin-pointing a target, because of the ability of our bombardiers to score direct hits on small targets. It was the B-17 Flying Fortress that gave Army airmen the greatest help in perfecting high-altitude, precision bombing. The broad wings of the Fortress furnished a steady platform from which to aim the bombs, and the great plane was able to fly smoothly in the higher altitudes. The bombardier riding in its transparent nose could carefully line up his target and drop his bombs with precision accuracy.
It was not until the outbreak of World War II that most Americans came to realize the value of the airplane in modern conflict. As the fighting grew to global proportions, Americans began in particular to appreciate the farsightedness of our Air Corps leaders in developing the long-range bomber.
By 1940 the original Boeing 299 or B-17 had grown from a sixteen-ton ship to a giant twenty-two-ton bomber. The new version, the B-17D, was powered with two 1,200-horsepower radial engines, giving it a speed of more than 300 miles per hour. Continual improvements were made on it and by the spring of 1942 a still more formidable member of the Fortress family, the B-17F, was in production.
The B-17F was the most powerful bomber yet produced. It was armed with eleven .50-caliber machine guns and manned by a crew of ten. It could carry more than three tons of bombs to targets over seven hundred miles distant. Its oxygen system permitted its crew to fly the Fortress at altitudes above 35,000 feet. With its eleven heavy machine guns in the hands of a perfectly trained crew, the Fortress was capable of defending itself with deadly effectiveness.
The first Flying Fortresses went into action with the United States Army on the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Although this country had then only a limited number of Fortresses, they and their successors quickly began to distinguish themselves on the battlefronts of the world.
