Memphis Belle

During the Second World War The United States Army Air Force
(USAAF) built its strategic bombing doctrine on the idea of daytime
"precision" bombing. USAAF planners believed the increased accuracy
daytime bombing offered could outweigh any risks to the bomber and
its crew posed by defending fighters. In order to enhance bomber
crew survivability the USAAF turned B-17 and B-24 bombers into
airborne battleships. Each bomber crew comprised at least 10 men, in
order to wield the heavy defensive firepower as well as perform the
primary bomb delivery task. The B-17 four-engine bomber acquired the
nickname "flying fortress", with its rugged airframe and 10 heavy
machineguns spread around the plane and located: in tandem in
turrets on top of the fuselage, in the tail, under the plane, and single
machine guns on each side of the bomber's main fuselage. Moreover,
the USAAF believed that if the bombers flew in tight formations, in
1943 meaning 54 aircraft flying within a box approximately 2,200 yards
wide, 600 yards long and 880 yards deep, the bombers would
exponentially increase their available defensive firepower.

There were several problems with this theory. Perhaps foremost was
that the bomber's defensive machine gunners had to target small
single-engine German interceptors moving at hundreds of miles per
hour, while firing from a moving platform in turbulent skies often
buffeted even more by flak explosions. Furthermore, the prop wash
from the bombers flying in tight formation made the bomber as a gun
platform even more unsteady. Consequently, a bomber formation,
despite bristling with hundreds of heavy machineguns firing thousands
of rounds per minute, remained remarkably vulnerable to the quick
moving, hard hitting German fighters. For instance, one USAAF Bomb
Group; the 95th from the 4th Bomber Wing, equipped with B-17's, lost
half its strength in its first nine missions. Because of such losses by
the end of March 1943, the US Eighth Air Force, flying out of England,
could not even put the number of bombers into the sky it had ready in
January. Thus, when the "Memphis Belle" completed its 25th mission,
the 1943 marker for the end of a US bomber crew's combat tour of
duty, it actually proved to be a quite fortunate aircraft and crew.
Only late in 1943, with the arrival of true long-range escort fighters
would casualty rates dip in the ranks of American bomber
crewmembers.

Picture Courtesy of the United States Air Force