how many b17s were shot down during ww2

Their first operation, against Wilhelmshaven on 8 July 1941 was unsuccessful. In fact, he wasn't a pilot at all . Ramsey, Winston G. "The V-Weapons". Flight crews ferried the bombers back across the Atlantic to the United States where the majority were sold for scrap and melted down, although significant numbers remained in use in second-line roles such as VIP transports, air-sea rescue and photo-reconnaissance. With its usual nose-mounted armament of four MK 108 cannons, and with some examples later equipped with the R4M rocket, launched from underwing racks, it could fire from outside the range of the bombers' .50in (12.7mm) defensive guns and bring an aircraft down with one hit,[147] as both the MK 108's shells and the R4M's warheads were filled with the "shattering" force of the strongly brisant Hexogen military explosive. 2. Frisbee, John L. "Valor: A Rather Special Award. Captured B-17 Bombers in World War II - warhistoryonline Two experimental versions of the B-17 were flown under different designations, the XB-38 Flying Fortress and the YB-40 Flying Fortress. Peak USAAF inventory (in August 1944) was 4,574 worldwide.[76]. [93][94] The operation, carried out in good visibility, was a success, with only minor damage to one aircraft, unrelated to enemy action, and half the bombs landing in the target area. Half of the group's B-17s were wiped out on 8 December 1941 when they were caught on the ground during refueling and rearming for a planned attack on Japanese airfields on Formosa. And of those 276,000 planes, 68,000 were lost. [112], On 7 December 1941, a group of 12 B-17s of the 38th (four B-17C) and 88th (eight B-17E) Reconnaissance Squadrons, en route to reinforce the Philippines, was flown into Pearl Harbor from Hamilton Field, California, arriving while the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was going on. [222], The Flying Fortress has also been featured in artistic works expressing the physical and psychological stress of the combat conditions and the high casualty rates that crews suffered. [71], Late in World WarII, at least 25 B-17s were fitted with radio controls and television cameras, loaded with 20,000lb (9,100kg) of high explosives and dubbed BQ-7 "Aphrodite missiles" for Operation Aphrodite. Forty-five planes survive in complete form, 38 in the United States. Frisbee, John L. "Valor: Courage and Conviction". [164] One hundred and seven B-17s were converted to drones. [103], To rectify the Fw 190's shortcomings, the number of cannons fitted was doubled to four, with a corresponding increase in the amount of ammunition carried, creating the Sturmbock bomber destroyer version. B-17, also called Flying Fortress, U.S. heavy bomber used during World War II. How many B-17s were shot down during World War 2? - Answers Crashed Model 299. A New Orleans native, James Linn first became involved with the institution then known as The National D-Day Museum in 2001 as an eighth-grade volunteer on weekends and during the summer. [165] The last operational mission flown by a USAF Fortress was conducted on 6 August 1959, when a DB-17P, serial 44-83684 , directed a QB-17G, out of Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, as a target for an AIM-4 Falcon air-to-air missile fired from a McDonnell F-101 Voodoo. But help soon arrived when the North American P-51 Mustang began to reach the beleaguered Eighth Air Force in large enough numbers to make a difference. [ Via] B17f-42-30336 landed in a field at Norholm Estate near Varde Denmark on 9.10.1943 after developing engine trouble, the crew baled out and the pilot landed the plane . Linn joined The National WWII Museum staff in 2014 andservedas a Curator until 2020. [36] Experiments on this aircraft led to the use of a quartet of General Electric turbo-superchargers, which later became standard on the B-17 line. They were chosen specifically for these missions as being more suitable for this role than other available German aircraft; they never attempted to deceive the Allies and always wore full Luftwaffe markings. Thomas, Geoffrey J., and Ketley, Barry, "KG 200 The Luftwaffe's Most Secret Unit", Hikoku Publications Ltd., Crowborough, East Sussex, UK, 2003, Correll, John T. " Rendezvous With the 'Rex'. The British had been bombing from the air, but heavy losses forced them to switch to nighttime area bombing, greatly reducing its effectiveness. 7071, 83, 92, 256, 26869. [180], Many B-17 crew members received military honors and 17 received the Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration awarded by the United States:[197], Data from The Encyclopedia of World Aircraft[38], Hollywood featured the B-17 in its period films, such as director Howard Hawks' Air Force starring John Garfield and Twelve O'Clock High starring Gregory Peck. The ammunition load was over 11,000 rounds. The Unknown Aces of the Eighth - National Museum of the Mighty Eighth "Operation Pointblank: Evolution of Allied Air Doctrine During World WarII". [111], By September 1944, 27 of the 42 bomb groups of the 8th Air Force and six of the 21 groups of the 15th Air Force used B-17s. The Soviets restored 23 to flying condition and concentrated them in the 890th bomber regiment of the 45th Bomber Aviation Division,[153] but they never saw combat. The B-17 evolved through numerous design advances[4][5] but from its inception, the USAAC (later, the USAAF) promoted the aircraft as a strategic weapon. From then on, red and white neutrality bands were added to the wings of Swiss aircraft to stop accidental attacks by Allied aircraft. Post accident interviews with Tower and Putt determined the control surface gust lock had not been released. [50] The B-17C changed from three bulged, oval-shaped gun blisters to two flush, oval-shaped gun window openings, and on the lower fuselage, a single "bathtub" gun gondola housing,[51] which resembled the similarly configured and located Bodenlafette/"Bola" ventral defensive emplacement on the German Heinkel He 111P-series medium bomber. How many b17s were shot down? AFA Statement on Loss of Historic B-17: Painful Reminder of the Of the 291 B-17s in the attack force, 60 were lost, 17 were heavily damaged and most of the others incurred some damage, but were repairable. All were Allison powered. [citation needed], Two additional groups arrived in Britain at the same time, bringing with them the first B-17Fs, which served as the primary AAF heavy bomber fighting the Germans until September 1943. Later that year, two groups moved to Algeria to join Twelfth Air Force for operations in North Africa. [140], After the first Y1B-17s were delivered to the Army Air Corps 2nd Bombardment Group, they were used on flights to promote their long range and navigational capabilities. Bomber wrecks were fewer but more expensive. Also on board were Wright Field test observer John Cutting, and mechanic Mark Koegler. [39] Once service testing was complete, the Y1B-17s and Y1B-17A were redesignated B-17 and B-17A, respectively, to signify the change to operational status. Designed by Dr. Sanford Moss, engine exhaust gases turned the turbine's steel-alloy blades, forcing high-pressure ram air into the Wright Cyclone GR-1820-39 engine supercharger. The first combat use of the B-17 came not with the USAAC (U.S. Army Air Forces after 1941), but with the Royal Air Force. Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress - Wikipedia Later versions carried four or even six MG 151/20 cannon and twin 13mm machine guns. They were brave. [95] The raid helped allay British doubts about the capabilities of American heavy bombers in operations over Europe. [110] The escort fighters reduced the loss rate to below 7%, with a total of 247 B-17s lost in 3,500 sorties while taking part in the Big Week raids. Its famous nickname came from the fact it carried 13 .50 caliber M2 Browning machine guns for protection, and had a legendary toughness for carrying its crew home on one engine or even with the tail shot away. Tragically, the plane stalled and spun into the ground soon after takeoff, bursting into flames. Some SB-17s had their defensive guns removed, while others retained their guns to allow use close to combat areas. This articleis part of an ongoing series commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II made possible by Bank of America. [note 1] Boeing also claimed in some of the early press releases that Model 299 was the first combat aircraft that could continue its mission if one of its four engines failed. [107][108], A third raid on Schweinfurt on 24 February 1944 highlighted what came to be known as "Big Week",[109] during which the bombing missions were directed against German aircraft production. For many, the B-17 is the iconic bomber of the war, and the Flying Fortress"remains a symbol of American might. [116] A series of disputed discussions and decisions, followed by several confusing and false reports of air attacks, delayed the authorization of the sortie. By the end of the war, the B-17 was an obsolete aircraft which had been surpassed by another Boeing bomber, the B-29 Superfortress. In a 1943 Consolidated Aircraft poll of 2,500 men in cities where Consolidated advertisements had been run in newspapers, 73% had heard of the B-24 and 90% knew of the B-17. Initially, it could carry a payload of 2200 kg along with 5x .30-inch machine guns. Gift of Peggy Wallace, 2010.308.041, B-17 Flying Fortresses of the 398th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force, in-flight above cloud level in Europe, 1944-45. The B-17 was designed by the Boeing Aircraft Company in response to a 1934 Army Air Corps specification that called for a four-engined bomber at a time when two engines were the norm. [36], A 14th Y1B-17 (37-369), originally constructed for ground testing of the airframe's strength, was upgraded by Boeing with exhaust-driven General Electric turbo-superchargers, and designated Y1B-17A. In July 1940, an order for 512 B-17s was issued,[43] but at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, fewer than 200 were in service with the army. Some of the German pilots had been flying in combat since 1936. B-17 pilot flew unexpectedly into the middle of Japanese attack on How many B-17s were shot down during the Second World War? Additional armament included an additional dorsal turret in the radio room, a remotely operated and fired Bendix-built "chin turret" directly below the bombardier's accommodation, and twin .50in (12.7mm) guns in each of the waist positions. Of the 12,731 B-17s built, about 4,735 were lost during the war. Designating the aircraft Fortress Mk I, the aircraft performed poorly during high-altitude raids in the summer of 1941. And by 27 April 1945, 2 days after the last heavy bombing mission in Europe, the rate of aircraft loss was so low that replacement aircraft were no longer arriving and the number of bombers per bomb group was reduced. Craven, Wesley Frank, James Lea Cate and Richard L. Watson, eds. Frisbee, John L. "Valor: Crisis in the Cockpit". The prototype B-17, with the Boeing factory designation of Model 299, was designed by a team of engineers led by E. Gifford Emery and Edward Curtis Wells, and was built at Boeing's own expense. [114], By 1941, the Far East Air Force (FEAF) based at Clark Field in the Philippines had 35 B-17s, with the War Department eventually planning to raise that to 165. The B-17F variants were the primary versions flying for the Eighth Air Force to face the Germans in 1943 and had standardized the manned Sperry ball turret for ventral defense, also replacing the earlier, 10-panel framed bombardier's nose glazing from the B subtype with an enlarged, nearly frameless Plexiglas bombardier's nose enclosure for improved forward vision. The bomber's topside surfaces were repainted a dark olive drab, but retained its light gray under wing and lower fuselage surfaces. The Americans, on the other hand, were proponents of daylight, precision bombing using their state-of-the-art and top-secret Norden bomb-sight. The RAF entered World War II with no heavy bomber of its own in service; the biggest available were long-range medium bombers such as the Vickers Wellington, which could carry up to 4,500 pounds (2,000kg) of bombs. World War 2 . Though the crash of the prototype 299 in 1935 had almost wiped out Boeing, now it was seen as a boon. Also, the Y1B-17A's new service ceiling was more than 2 miles (3.2km) higher at 38,000 feet (12,000m), compared to the Y1B-17's 27,800 feet (8,500m). M/SGT Michael Arooth shot down 17 enemy aircraft to reach triple "Ace" status. It was code-named "Tachikawa 105" after the mystery aircraft's wingspan was measured (104-ft.) but never identified. These aircraft were primarily used for agent drop missions over the People's Republic of China, flying from Taiwan, with Taiwanese crews. Over 5,000 B-17 bombers were lost in combat missions in world war II. A number of B-17Gs, redesignated B-17Hs and later SB-17Gs, were used in the Pacific during the final year of the war to carry and drop lifeboats to stranded bomber crews who had been shot down or crashed at sea. The Americans believed the B-17, with the Norden bomb sight, could be that bomber. ", "German wonder weapons: degraded production and effectiveness. The operation, which involved remotely flying Aphrodite drones onto their targets by accompanying CQ-17 "mothership" control aircraft, was approved on 26 June 1944, and assigned to the 388th Bombardment Group stationed at RAF Fersfield, a satellite of RAF Knettishall. The B-17, for all its armor and firepower, was simply unable to continue to fly unescorted against swarms of German fighter aircraft and their sophisticated air defense system. [223][224] Works such as The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner by Randall Jarrell and Heavy Metal's section "B-17" depict the nature of these missions. Over 5,000 B-17 bombers were lost in combat missions in world war II. National Archives and Records Administration - ARC Identifier 2870 / Local Identifier 18-C-406-2 - AIR WAR IN EUROPE - War Department. The project came to a sudden end with the unexplained midair explosion over the Blyth estuary of a B-24, part of the United States Navy's contribution as "Project Anvil", en route for Heligoland piloted by Lieutenant Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., future U.S. president John F. Kennedy's elder brother. 60 Of the 291 attacking Fortresses, 60 were shot down over Germany, five crashed on approach to Britain, and 12 more were scrapped due to damage - a loss of 77 B-17s. The most famous B-17, the Memphis Belle, toured the U. S. with her crew to reinforce national morale (and to sell war bonds). It was a four engine, heavy bomber which first flew on July 28, 1935. B-17s were used in early battles of the Pacific with little success, notably the Battle of Coral Sea[120] and Battle of Midway. [30] One suggestion adopted was the use of a preflight checklist to avoid accidents such as that which befell the Model 299. Meantime 60 B-17's were lost to all causes (including flak). [7] The USAAF bombers attacked by day, with British operations chiefly against industrial cities by night. The first Schweinfurt-Regensburg Raid occurred during >World War II (1939-1945). The B-17s were primarily involved in the daylight precision strategic bombing campaign against German targets ranging from U-boat pens, docks, warehouses, and airfields to industrial targets such as aircraft factories. 504-528-1944, Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy, Black Volunteer Infantry Platoons in World War II, Kasserine Pass: German Offensive, American Victory, Gallantry against Great Odds: LTC George Marshall and Operation RESERVIST, Prelude to Liberation: Genesis of American Amphibious Assault in the ETO, Black Thursday October 14, 1943: The Second Schweinfurt Bombing Raid, An Exercise in Depravity: The Establishment of the Warsaw Ghetto, Unsung Witnesses of the Battle of Stalingrad, Stalingrad: Experimentation, Adaptation, Implementation. [127] On the morning of 4 March 1943, a B-17 sank the destroyer Asashio with a 500lb (230kg) bomb while she was picking up survivors from Arashio. While the US had less than 200 at the start of the war, more than 12,000 B-17s were produced by the end and served in every theater. Gift of Peggy Wallace, 2010.308.022, B-17 Flying Fortresses in formation over Europe, 1944-45. [150][151] One B-17 of KG200, bearing the Luftwaffe's KG 200 Geschwaderkennung (combat wing code) markings A3+FB, was interned by Spain when it landed at Valencia airfield, 27 June 1944, remaining there for the rest of the war. [57] The B-17E was an extensive revision of the Model 299 design: The fuselage was extended by 10ft (3.0m); a much larger rear fuselage, vertical tailfin, rudder, and horizontal stabilizer were added; a gunner's position was added in the new tail;[note 4] the nose (especially the bombardier's framed, 10-panel nose glazing) remained relatively the same as the earlier B through D versions had; a Sperry electrically powered manned dorsal gun turret just behind the cockpit was added; a similarly powered (also built by Sperry) manned ventral ball turret just aft of the bomb bay replaced the relatively hard-to-use, Sperry model 645705-D[60] remotely operated ventral turret on the earliest examples of the E variant. 2012-03-07 01:27:07. It should have been a peaceful Sunday morning in Hawaii. . She was featured in a USAAF documentary, Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress. [134] To address this problem, the United States developed the bomb-group formation, which evolved into the staggered combat box formation in which all the B-17s could safely cover any others in their formation with their machine guns. The B-17's greatest success in the Pacific was in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, in which aircraft of this type were responsible for damaging and sinking several Japanese transport ships. The only prototype XB-38 to fly crashed on its ninth flight, and the type was abandoned. Wikipedia says: Defensive armament increased from four 0.50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns and one 0.30 in (7.62 mm) nose machine gun in the B-17C, to thirteen 0.50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns in the B-17G. The competition for the air corps contract was to be decided by a "fly-off" between Boeing's design, the Douglas DB-1, and the Martin Model 146 at Wilbur Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio. The aircraft went through several alterations in each of its design stages and variants. [citation needed], In July 1945, 16 B-17s were transferred to the Coast Guard via the Navy; these aircraft were initially assigned U.S. Navy Bureau Numbers (BuNo), but were delivered to the Coast Guard designated as PB-1Gs beginning in July 1946. In 1964, the latter film was made into a television show of the same name and ran for three years on ABC TV. Answer (1 of 12): Yes but the kill ratio generally favored attacking fighters. Frisbee, John L. "Valor: Gauntlet of Fire". The problem was there was no easy way to hit Germany, as a cross-channel invasion of Europe was still years away. [103] Early versions of the Fw 190, one of the best German interceptor fighters, were equipped with two 20mm (0.79in) MG FF cannons, which carried only 500 rounds when belt-fed (normally using 60-round drum magazines in earlier installations), and later with the better Mauser MG 151/20 cannons, which had a longer effective range than the MG FF weapon. [10] The B-17's armament consisted of five .30 caliber (7.62mm) machine guns, with a payload up to 4,800lb (2,200kg) of bombs on two racks in the bomb bay behind the cockpit. A merica joined Britain's strategic air campaign designed to destroy Nazi Germany's industrial capacity soon after her entrance into World War Two. The Fortress came under fire from Japanese fighter aircraft, though the crew was unharmed with the exception of one member who suffered an abrasion on his hand. How many helicopters were shot down in Vietnam? The XB-38 was an engine testbed for Allison V-1710 liquid-cooled engines, should the Wright engines normally used on the B-17 become unavailable. [clarification needed] Stories circulated of B-17s returning to base with tails shredded, engines destroyed and large portions of their wings destroyed by flak. [115] When the FEAF received word of the attack on Pearl Harbor, General Lewis H. Brereton sent his bombers and fighters on various patrol missions to prevent them from being caught on the ground. [138][139][140] Wally Hoffman, a B-17 pilot with the Eighth Air Force during World WarII, said, "The plane can be cut and slashed almost to pieces by enemy fire and bring its crew home. How many German fighters did the B17 and B24 shoot down during - Quora The Name These included B-17G 44-85531, registered as N809Z. Regardless, the USAAC had been impressed by the prototype's performance, and on 17 January 1936, through a legal loophole,[27][28] the Air Corps ordered 13 YB-17s (designated Y1B-17 after November 1936 to denote its special F-1 funding) for service testing. [103] Pilots of average ability hit the bombers with only about two percent of the rounds they fired, so to obtain 20 hits, the average pilot had to fire one thousand 20mm (0.79in) rounds at a bomber. During a bombing mission on July 5, 1943, Warner shot down 7 German fighters, for which he was given the Distinguished Service Cross.

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