Posted on 09/22/2022 11:25:14 AM PDT by robowombat
... and the B-17 had a paltry bomb load for a WW2 ‘heavy’ bomber. It wasn’t in the really same league with the B-24 or the Avro Lancaster. But it was sturdy and brought a lot of it’s crews back home.
But still an amazing plane. One of my favorites. Deep respect for the men that flew them.
A late friend was a boom operator on the KC-97. Served in a refueling detachment on Midway Island refueling B-47’s between the US and the Far East.
Got nailed one day by the Navy base commander (4-striper) for trapping albatrosses and stenciling the USAF “meatball” on the struggling bird’s wings with a rattle can of blue paint. Apparently the Navy ATC guys were mighty annoyed with the soaring birds “in the pattern” so to speak.
One of the legendary service pranks of all time. I’m sure they were looking for a crappier duty assignment than Midway for him. LOL! I guess Thule, Greenland was all booked?
Yes, based on the looks on the faces of the onlookers in a lot of the post-landing battle damage photos, the ruggedness of the B-17 amazed even the men who flew it.
Of course, when the incident below occurred many decades later, it helped the airplane had been designed and built by one of the world’s premier bomber manufacturers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=boeing+737+hawaii+loss+of+cabin+roof&t=iphone&iax=images&ia=images
I had never heard of B-17 external bomb racks before. And no, the B-47 never bombed anything for real. But it did perform a mission where it penetrated the USSR near Murmansk, made it halfway to Moscow, got shot up by MiG 17s and made it back to England. It fired defensive shots with it’s 20mm tail stinger.
Well, yes. They were really looking for the two nuclear warhead “pits” or enriched plutonium bomb cores that with the bomber. They had to find the bomber first though.
The B-17s would only average 6-8 days between missions: The Memphis Belle was the first heavy bomber to survive just 25 missions. But it took over 6 months to do that.
Today’s A10 or A6 or F15EX can drop more bombs at longer ranges, flying 3 missions a day, and getting over 60% hits per bomb! The B17s were only getting 10% of their bombs within 1/2 mile of the target.
Good point, the aircraft was at least 4 years old.
Darn SS and Medicare should be updated for everyone who wants it.
A YouTuber named Lord Hardthrasher has an interesting channel where he analyses the WW2 strategic bombing campaigns. And he has some good ones on the falsehoods of Nazi technical superiority and how so much of their fear was shyt. Well worth checking out.
How much of their gear was shyt. Damm autocorrect.
Thank you! Will follow up.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.