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  • Gunners

    US Army Air Forces gunners defended B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator bombers against fighter attacks with machine guns aimed by hand (“flexible guns”) and electrically-powered gun turrets.  Typically, gunners made up half of a bomber crew, manning a top turret, ball turret, two waist guns,

  • D-Day Support

    “I, personally, am convinced that without your air force...the invasion would not have succeeded...”            —Generalleutnant Adolf Galland, Luftwaffe General of FightersBy May 1944, the strategic bombing campaign had crippled the Luftwaffe’s fighter force, making the Normandy invasion possible. 

  • "26th Mission": War Bond Tour

    “You are being sent on another mission, perhaps the most important of the many on which you have flown in this famous plane...It is to carry a message which should hearten a great people.”      —Gen Jacob Devers, Commander, US Army European Theater of Operations, Summer 1943 “26th Mission”: War Bond

  • Fighter Escort: “Little Friends”

    During the first half of the strategic bombing campaign, the USAAF lacked fighters that could escort its heavy bombers on strikes against targets in Germany.  As a result, heavy bomber crews took devastating losses that threatened the continuation of the campaign.  By early 1944, improvements to the

  • Fifteenth Air Force—Strategic Bombing from Italy

    In September 1943, the USAAF formed the Fifteenth Air Force, uniting its Mediterranean heavy bomber forces together at bases in southern Italy.  The USAAF could now mount major strategic raids in southern and eastern Europe, creating even more pressure on the Luftwaffe defense.  String of bombs on

  • Blind Bombing: “Mickey”

    During the frequently cloudy conditions over Europe, USAAF bombers could not bomb visually.  In these conditions, USAAF heavy bombers used a radar system called H2X and code-named “Mickey.”   Mickey-equipped “pathfinder” aircraft gave formations the signal to bomb.  On B-24 pathfinders, the H2X

  • OPERATION TIDALWAVE: Ploesti, August 1, 1943

    On August 1, 1943, the USAAF staged Operation Tidalwave—a daring, surprise low-level B-24 raid against the Axis’ critical source of fuel, the oil fields in Ploesti, Romania.   During the unescorted 1,000 mile flight from Libya, clouds broke the formation into two groups and a wrong turn caused even

  • OPERATION FRANTIC: Shuttle Raids to the Soviet Union

    In 1944, the US persuaded Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to allow USAAF aircraft to operate out of bases in the western Soviet Union.  Between June and September 1944, the Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces conducted a total of seven so-called “shuttle raids” under the code name Operation

  • Epilogue: Sacrifice and Victory

    Starting with only a theory and a handful of aircraft, the USAAF faced early setbacks and devastating losses.  Still, heavy bomber crews time and time again resolutely fought through enemy defenses to hit their targets.  With their courage and sacrifice, the USAAF created a massive, unstoppable

  • Early Operations: Eighth Air Force in England

    In 1942 and early 1943, while the British Royal Air Force (RAF) conducted saturation bombing at night, the USAAF was trying to prove the validity of daytime precision bombing with its small bomber force in England.  For the first year, Eighth Air Force heavy bombers attacked submarine bases and