"One, two... Fifteen, sixteen..." On May 17, 1943, at an english airfield, a team of bombers that had completed the mission of bombing the Third Reich itself was roaring back to base, and a ground officer held up a telescope while counting the number of returning aircraft and reciting words in his mouth. An officer who looked like a wing commander stepped in and asked, "Is the Memphis Beauty back?" "Nothing." He replied melancholy. As soon as the words fell out, a scarred bomber with only one engine still in operation appeared in the field of vision...
This is a scene from the movie "Beauty of Memphis". Filmed in 1990, it takes a not-so-big perspective, the last battle of the B-17 bombing crew of the U.S. Army Air Force on the European battlefield of World War II, which was the first to return home from 25 combat missions, truly reflecting the magnificent and tragic history of the anti-fascist war. Well, let's look at the real Memphis Beauty and her companions' tracks left in history.
The fleet of heaven
The emergence of the idea of strategic bombing can be traced back to the Period of World War I. At that time, the long and continuous brutal trench warfare on land and sea prompted military experts to seek a means that could cross the front line and destroy each other's war capabilities and potential. Soon after the end of World War I, strategic bombing became one of the development trends of air combat. At that time, it was believed that long-range strategic bombers could destroy the production capacity of the opponent and destroy the will to war of the other nationals necessary to maintain the war, so that the front-line troops of the other side must fall into the dilemma of not being willing to fight again and unable to fight again. In 1923, the Italian military theorist Duhei wrote a book entitled "Air Supremacy" systematically discussed the changes brought by the rise of this aviation technology to the style of warfare. It also opened a new page in military history.
In the Battle of Britain in 1940, the Luftwaffe bomber units practiced the theory of strategic bombing for the first time over England. German bombers almost pushed the British Empire, which had escaped across the strait and had to breathe, into a desperate situation. But in fact, this "almost" is far from the same, the number and quality of Luftwaffe bombers are far from enough to kill a country, they just attacked the ROYAL Air Force airfields and carried out nighttime "terrorist" bombings of the city.
When the Allies recovered from the fiasco at the beginning of the war, the curtain was drawn on the counterattack on Europe. Between 1941 and 1942, soviet battles left Nazi Germany defiant, while the European continent under the Nazi heel still seemed unbreakable. In this way, the Anglo-American coalition in the West could only consider counterattacking Germany from the air.
In January 1942, the 8th Air Force of the United States Army Air Force was formed in Savannah, Georgia, and moved to the United Kingdom in February. On July 4 of that year, air crews of the 8th Air Force flew six A-20 bombers "borrowed" from the Royal Air Force (which were actually products of the American factory) and raided the Luftwaffe base in the Netherlands with six British pilots of the same type. The attack was unsuccessful, but it gave Americans their first-hand experience of European air combat after a gap of 24 years.
As the convoy of transport ships crossed the Atlantic, the strength of the U.S. forces stationed in Britain grew, and the strength of the 8th Air Force was greatly enhanced, and the new B-17 "Flying Fortress" bombers were also produced in batches from factories on the other side of the Atlantic to airfields scattered throughout England. For most of 1942, U.S. Army aviation was training and preparing, with occasional skirmish operations to gain experience. In 1943, the Allies began using these heavy bombers to carry out strategic bombing against Nazi Germany in an attempt to weaken its war potential. The British undertook the task of carrying out nighttime "carpet" bombing of Germany, while the United States chose to carry out precision bombing of targets of the Third Reich during the day. Since then, the story of the dark cloud-like steel fleet in the European sky has begun.
The struggle between daytime air raids and counter-air raids
Hundreds of heavy bombers with thousands of tons of bombs and thousands of machine guns are a formidable force in every way they look at it. In addition to making the German people on the ground feel the cruelty of war firsthand, the Luftwaffe fighter units that faced them were also deeply troubled by this never-before-experienced form of combat.
A German fighter commander once said to his pilots, "The acrobatic battle of independence is over." We were no longer facing the opposing pilots, but a huge air fleet, a large number of machine gunners who had tied themselves to their turrets with belts, infantry in the sky. ”
What he said was entirely true. In the air raids and anti-air raids on the Western Front of Europe in World War II, the technical performance advantages that German aircraft designers and pilots had worked so hard for were almost meaningless, and German pilots could only rush to the oncoming bomber group like infantry on the ground charging at enemy defense positions. When the B-17s first attacked on 17 August 1942, they did not shoot down even a single Flying Fortress, but instead several fighters were buried under the B-17's intense self-defense fire.
But that doesn't mean the daytime bombing of the Nazis will be easy. Although the B-17 is covered with machine guns like a hedgehog, its self-defense capabilities are not as impeccable as they seem. To boost morale, U.S. military top brass stipulated that air crews could return home after completing 25 missions. But during the war, the morale of bomber pilots remained low, as many as 80 percent of the first bombers of American aviation forces to participate in European warfare were shot down or wounded in enemy airspace. Luftwaffe fighters and anti-aircraft artillery units had gradually gained experience in fighting against heavy bomber formations, and their fierce resistance would cast a bloody layer on this dazzling splendor.
One of the worst losses for the B-17 and daytime precision bombing tactics occurred on August 17, 1943. The battle situation on this day can be said to be more typical. At that time, the Eighth Air Force launched a large-scale airstrike, targeting both the Messerschmitt plant in Regensburg in southern Bavaria and the ball bearing plant in Schweinfurt. For this mission, the US military dispatched 376 "flying fortresses". The depth of the attack was unprecedented since the beginning of the war — 800 kilometers deep into the Heart of Germany and straight into central Europe. However, at that time, the Allies did not have a fighter that was so long as to escort such a mission, and the bomber group had to go deep into the enemy position without an escort aircraft, relying only on its own machine guns to defend itself. The time for the aircraft to take off from the UK was delayed for some time due to weather reasons, which made the planned assembly over the English Channel unattainable, and the formation of the fleet was thus dispersed. This dispersion made it easier for them to be broken by each one, and in fact, the fierce attacks on these "flying fortresses" were indeed unprecedented.
The Germans "greeted" the bombers who came from afar with everything they could. Various types of German fighters fired at the B-17 with 7.92mm machine guns, 20mm cannons and air-to-air rockets, and even German bombers flew up to throw at the Allied aircraft group, and as for the anti-aircraft guns, they were said to be "so dense that you can walk on them". The Luftwaffe used a number of tactics in the fight against the B-17. Their fighters sometimes rushed toward the bombers from the direction of the sun, in which case the glare of sunlight made it difficult for the B-17's machine gunners to aim at the target. In this air raid, the B-17 also exposed a serious weakness, that is, a serious shortage of firepower in the front. With only 1 .30 (note, not .50) machine guns at the nose, the bomber group was often helpless in the face of frontal attacks from German aircraft. The Germans also adopted an extremely effective tactic of concentrating a large number of fighters on a certain American bomber formation. U.S. bomber formations generally consist of 3-12 aircraft, organized into a formation known as a "box" to concentrate firepower against enemy aircraft. In the face of the concentrated attack of a large number of German fighters, although they were always able to shoot down some enemy aircraft, the bombers in the formation were often shot down by the rest of the German aircraft one by one, but the surviving aircraft in the formation still insisted on advancing towards the target. The 100th Bomber Wing took off 19 bombers to fight on August 17, and only 2 were able to return, making it known as the "Blood 100". In this attack, the U.S. military lost a total of 60 B-17,600 aircrews, not including casualties on the planes that returned from damage. Not only were the losses enormous, but the effect of the air raid was not significant: the bearing plant's production capacity fell by only 40 percent. Inaccurate Allied intelligence led them to believe that the vast majority of German ball bearing production capacity was concentrated in Schweinfurt, which was not the case – although the bearing factories there were indeed important. The failed airstrike was repeated two months later on October 17, 1943, with the same heavy losses, equally ineffective, and left behind a reputation for "Bloody Thursday." The two nearly identical defeats forced the Army Air Corps to re-examine its "precision bombing during the day" strategy. Daytime bombing had to be temporarily stopped until February 1944, when it resumed.
These air battles in 1943 made it clear that the unintended B-17, despite its strong self-defense firepower, remained vulnerable to German fighters. To overcome this shortcoming, the B-17G with its nose turret began to appear over Europe in 1944, and more importantly, the new P-51 Mustang fighter was put into the battlefield. The P-51 is a long-range fighter that can escort the B-17 from a British base to a target and back. On this premise, the air raids of 6 March 1944 were a success. It was the first time a large number of B-17s had been sent to bomb Berlin. Escorted by the P-51 and British P-47 Thunderbolt fighters, the B-17 group suffered much lighter losses than the two missions in August and October 1943. Not only were the losses reduced, but the effectiveness of the air raids was greatly improved, not only inflicting heavy damage on military targets such as military factories, but also dealing a heavy blow to the German psyche. This air raid taught the Germans that the capital of the Empire was no longer indestructible! Thus casting an indelible shadow on their minds — just as the doolittle's air raid on Tokyo on April 18, 1942, had affected the Japanese. Although British bombers bombed Berlin as early as 1940, those attacks were nowhere near as large as the 600 heavy bombers. This was only the beginning, after which allied bomber groups would regularly "patronize" the capital of the Third Reich until the evil empire was completely flattened. During these bombing operations, the Allies often dispatched super-large groups of 1,000 bombers to repeatedly destroy the city, which was gradually becoming a ruin. Someone commented: "The Germans built a fortress and forgot to build a roof for it. The victory of this air raid in March 1944 marked a dramatic turning point in the european air war. The B-17 fleet, which had been badly damaged earlier, could now now effectively attack any German target, escorted by fighter jets, without suffering heavy losses.
Many of the B-17's models were put to the test in the skies of Europe. The B-17 and her crew paid a heavy price, but brought fire and punishment to the enemy, which made the Flying Fortress, which was not the largest and fastest aircraft at the time, have an indelible place in the history of World War II. She was the decisive weapon in the European air war. Not only did she raze the cities and factories of the Third Reich to the ground, but she also gradually depleted the Luftwaffe. By the time the Western Allies opened a second theater in Normandy, air supremacy had completely fallen into the hands of the Allies, and by the time of the "Thousand Air Bombing" of Berlin on March 24, 1945, more than a thousand B-17s had encountered only 4 German fighters (albeit the frightening Me-262 jet fighters) and 3 had been shot down! This advantage allowed the Allied ground forces to restrain and defeat the once-invincible German Army. If it is said that the B-17 won the War in Europe, it is obviously very reluctant, but there is no doubt that the B-17 played an irreplaceable role in the gradual defeat of the Allies to gain the advantage of the Germans. The B-17 was a revolutionary weapon, and along with many of her innovations and inadequacies, she not only effectively influenced the course of World War II, but also changed the face of the war that followed.
Various models of the B-17
The term "Flying Fortress" comes from a Seattle reporter's exclamation of the aircraft's self-defense firepower. During the 10-year production period, as the actual combat continues to bring new experiences and lessons to people, Boeing engineers are constantly improving the aircraft, and its appearance is constantly changing.
In 1938, 39 "B" aircraft went off the assembly line; in 1939, 38 "C" aircraft followed: both models were equipped with stronger firepower than the A type, thicker armor protection and self-enclosing fuel tanks. In 1940, another 42 D-models were put into service. These Ds, along with a small number of C-planes, became the first "flying fortresses" to enter the war—first in the hands of the British Royal Air Force and later by American pilots who flew over Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
In September 1941, a "flying fortress" with a major modification of the tail wing appeared. The small vertical stabilizer and rudder disappeared and was replaced by a large vertical tail that protruded from the middle of the fuselage and extended to the tail. Below the tail end is a pair of powerful .50 caliber machine guns, an important improvement after absorbing the actual combat experience of the British Army. At the same time, it also added a bathtub-shaped belly turret equipped with 2 .50 machine guns for remote firing, and later because it was found that the reliability of this remote control turret was problematic, it replaced it with a manually operated spherical turret. This is the B-17E. The full length of the B-17E was increased to 73 feet 10 inches to accommodate the new tail machine gun turret. It has a maximum speed of 317 mph and a maximum payload of up to 17,000 lbs! Speeds of up to 200 mph when carrying 4,000 lbs. Since then, the "flying fortress" has become a veritable name.
The B-17F, which is similar to the E-type, was produced in Lockheed, Douglas, and Vega (the predecessor of the current Lockheed Company), with the former dominating it. The speed of this aircraft is somewhat lower than that of the previous models. It's only 299 mph, and the minimum landing speed has been increased to 90 mph! It has a practical ceiling of 37,500 feet, a range of 2,880 miles, and a climb to 20,000 feet in 25 minutes and a half hours. However, after paying these costs, the B-17F was fitted with 10 .50 caliber machine guns and 1 .30 caliber machine gun (mounted on a glass cover on the nose), and enhanced armor protection of key areas, thus improving survival in the face of enemy fire. Together, the three companies produced 3,400 B-17Fs.
In September 1943, the ultimate model of the "Flying Fortress" surfaced, the B-17G. It was fitted with an additional turret directly below the nose with 2 .50 caliber machine guns to compensate for the lack of upward firepower directly in front of the previous model. The aircraft was equipped with a total of 12 .50 machine guns, with a reserve of 6,380 rounds (a smaller .30 caliber machine gun mounted above the middle rear of the fuselage). Boeing, Vega, and Douglas put into production of the largest of these B-17s, with a total of 8,680 aircraft.
From 1935 to May 1945, a total of 12,731 B-17s of various types flew into the blue skies, of which 4,735 were destroyed.
Ten brothers in the fortress
For the B-17, the most important thing was actually the crew that drove and defended her. The crew of the Flying Fortress is made up of ten air crews with different missions, duties, and positions.
The pilot is in charge of the aircraft and is also the commander of the crew. His duty was to take the aircraft and crew over the target and bring them back safely.
Co-pilot is a position on all medium and heavy bombers of the U.S. Army. Due to the long-term maintenance of tight flying formations, this position became indispensable. Moreover, in many cases, pilots are wounded or killed in battle, and in the event of such a situation, the co-pilot takes over the aircraft.
The bomber is responsible for reloading the aircraft and using the Norton bomber sight to drop it onto the target. When performing a formation bombing mission, the bombardier of the lead aircraft should aim at the target as accurately as possible, and the other aircraft should follow suit. In addition to controlling the bombing, he was also responsible for operating the .50 caliber machine gun at the nose.
The navigator is responsible for determining the position of the aircraft and its position relative to the target and base. He used four different means to navigate the aircraft: visual navigation (based on some obvious landmarks on the ground), dead-pushing algorithm (judging the current position of the aircraft based on its heading, speed and previously known orientation), radio navigation and astronomical navigation. The navigator was also responsible for operating a .50 caliber machine gun at the nose.
The 4 men were all located at the front of the plane and were all officers, while the 6 men in the back were all enlisted soldiers.
The mechanic is responsible for the maintenance and repair of the aircraft during the flight, he must be fully familiar with the structure and mechanics of the B-17, and in case of emergency, he is responsible for the forced landing of the aircraft. Not only that, but the mechanic is also responsible for controlling the turret on the back of the machine, from where he has a 360-degree azimuth view that can alert the entire upper hemisphere.
The radio operator is located in the middle of the fuselage and is mainly responsible for communication between the aircraft and the other aircraft in the formation. But the occupants in this position have to do more than anyone else. In addition to maneuvering a .50-caliber machine gun on the back of the machine, he turned on the camera after dropping the bomb, which could take pictures of the landing point at intervals of ten seconds for judging the results of the battle. Not only that, but the radioman also has to act as an ambulance in the crew.
Waist machine gunners, 1 on the left and 1 on the right, were responsible for using .50-caliber machine guns on either side of the fuselage to resist enemy fighters approaching from the side of the aircraft. These shooters suffered more casualties than the rest of the crew in the battle, as their positions were the most exposed on the whole aircraft.
The belly shooter was generally small, sitting in a small turret in the lower part of the B-17, a position that allowed him to observe the entire underside of the aircraft. The belly shooter controls the rotation of the turret with a foot pedal. The belly turrets on the latter B-17s provided an excellent point of fire for the aircraft, and although it seemed to be the most unfortunate position for the whole aircraft, it was actually the safest. At the end of the war, the belly turrets on the "Flying Fortress" were cancelled to save weight, but only if, by this time, German fighters had rarely appeared.
The tail gun palm controls the most important points of fire. Since the tail is the most favorable direction for the opposing fighter pilot to approach the attack, the tail gunner should naturally be the best shooter in the crew.
The ten crews had to work together to defend against enemy aircraft attacks and bombing missions in order to drop bombs on the enemy's heads and take themselves home. In fact, the factors that made the B-17 so successful were not only the aircraft itself, but also these crews could not be ignored. The ability of a pilot to steer an aircraft, the pilot's ability to determine coordinates, the bomber's ability to bomb accurately... Countless air service officers and men worked together to create the glory of the blue sky in those years.
The story of the Memphis Beauty
Having introduced so much, let's go back and look at the real "Memphis Beauty".
As in the movie, the B-17 Flying Fortress bomber Memphis Beauty (serial number No. 41-24485) was the first bomber of the 8th Air Force to return to the United States after 25 missions in World War II. Her crew received the plane in Bangor, Maine, in September 1942 and then flew to Memphis, Tennessee, for a brief stopover, where Captain Robert E. Lee was killed in a car accident. K. Morgan fell in love with the local Lady Margaret Polk at first sight, and his landline was given the name "Memphis Beauty" for it. From there, she flew across the Atlantic Ocean to the Base of Basinborn, not far north of London in England. On November 7, 1942, she and her companions left the runway and flew to the port of Brest, France, still under German occupation, where she began her 10-month, 36,000-kilometer battle.
Listed here are 25 missions she has performed:
1. 7 November 1942 Bombing of Brest, France.
2. 9 November 1942 Bombing of Saint-Nazaré, France.
3. 17 November 1942 Bombing of Saint-Nazaré, France.
4. 6 December 1942 Bombing of Lille, France.
5. 20 December 1942 Bombing of Romeuil-sur-Seine, France
6. 3 January 1943 Bombing of Saint-Nazaré, France.
7. 13 January 1943 Bombing of Lille, France.
8. 23 January 1943 Bombing of Lorient, France.
9. 4 February 1943 Bombing of Emden, Germany.
10. 14 February 1943 Bombing of Hamm, Germany.
11. 16 February 1943 Bombing of Saint-Nazaré, France.
12. 26 February 1943 Bombing of Wilhelmshaven, Germany.
13. 27 February 1943 Bombing of Brest, France.
14. 6 March 1943 Bombing of Lorient, France.
15. 12 March 1943 Bombing of Rouen, France.
16. 13 March 1943 Bombing of Abouville, France.
17. 22 March 1943 Bombing of Wilhelmshaven, Germany.
18. 28 March 1943 Bombing of Rouen, France.
19. 5 April 1943 Bombing of the port of Antwerp, Belgium.
20. 16 April 1943 Bombing of Lorient, France.
21. 17 April 1943 Bombing of Bremen, Germany.
22. 1 May 1943 Bombing of Saint-Nazaré, France.
23. 4 May 1943 Bombing of the Port of Antwerp, Belgium.
24. 15 May 1943 Bombing of Wilhelmshaven, Germany.
25. 17 May 1943 Bombing of Lorient, France.
She was only one of 12,750 B-17s of all types, and certainly the most famous, as she was the first to complete 25 combat missions in the European war waged by Hitler's Germany and returned safely to the United States with her crew. She flew for 10 months from December 7, 1942 to May 17, 1943. In total, she shot down 8 German fighter jets, with another record of 5 possible downfalls, in addition to which she injured at least 12. What's more, she dropped more than 60 tons of bombs on Nazi-controlled Germany, France and Belgium. She was also the only B-17 of more than 10,000 to have ever been a "movie star."
This heroic lady, like her comrades-in-arms, was devastated by artillery fire. She had an engine destroyed on 5 missions, and 1 came back with a nearly knocked-out tail. Fortunately none of her crew were seriously injured in the battle.
The 26th mission of the Memphis Beauty returned to the United States in the summer of 1943 to thank the people for their contribution to the war and to encourage the American public to continue to support the entry of the army into the war. The crew visited 32 cities across the United States, where they were greeted with heroism. Their mascot, a black Scottish dog named Stuka, who flew across the Atlantic with them, also accompanied them around the country.
After a series of activities, Captain Morgan chose to remain in the army. He came to the Pacific Theater and became the captain of the B-29 Superfortress bomber "Fearless Doti", and threw himself into the war to defeat japanese fascism. Eventually, he retired from the military rank of colonel in 1965.
Aftersound
The war ended with the complete destruction of fascism, and the story of the B-17F bomber Memphis Beauty could be concluded, but the unforgettable name was not abandoned. In October 1999, at the age of 81, Colonel Morgan was invited to fly the U.S. Army's latest B-1B strategic bomber, and a of the same type of aircraft in the squadron was immediately named the Memphis Beauty III.
Even more famous than the name is the idea of strategic bombing inherited from those war-torn years. With the support of modern technology, the "high-altitude precision bombing" tactics that made the B-17s pay a heavy price and create immortal glory became the most important combat mode of the US Air Force today.
But we also see that, under the deception of this force, the army that made great contributions to the anti-fascist war is quietly continuing what the fascist leaders did not do. History is such a mockery.