Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress

Jimmy Stewart’s rise from Private to Colonel

By Sam McGowan

Jimmy Stewart is arguably the only prewar American actor of superstar magnitude to have served in a sustained combat role during World War II, and the only one to have served in a position of command. Read more

Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress

Tactical Thunder: The Ninth Air Force

By Sam McGowan

As the landing craft carrying the invading Allied ground forces of Operation Overlord motored toward the Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944, they were protected and supported by the largest aerial armada the world has ever seen. Read more

Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress

Hell on New Britain

By Adam Lynch

The American effort to neutralize the big Japanese air-sea base at Rabaul on the island of New Britain in the South Pacific was heating up, and 18-year-old aviation radioman John Kepchia was about to feel the heat. Read more

Flying high above sun-tinged clouds, a formation of Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses streaks away from a target in Germany after dropping its cargo of destruction. The U.S. Eighth Air Force bombed German cities by day, while the British Royal Air Force kept up the round-the-clock air offensive at night.

Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress

390th Bomb Group’s Risky Run Over Merseburg

By Milton J. Elliott III

When the call came that morning, it was not unlike the 25 times previously when they had flown, or all those other times when weather intervened and postponement was ordered. Read more

Using modified B-25 bombers to develop skip-bombing, the U.S. Air Force found it to be an effective technique against Japanese shipping.

Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress

Modified B-25 Bombers Pioneered The Skip-Bombing Tactic

by Sam McGowan

One of the successful strategies used by airmen in the Southwest Pacific Area of Operations was skip- bombing, a method of aerial attack in which a bomber approached an enemy ship at wave-top height, then released a bomb with a delayed-action fuse from some distance away. Read more