The B-17 was one of the two major workhorse bombers of the U.S. military during WWII (the other being the B-24 Liberator). It was called the Flying Fortress. Even though the U.S. actually manufactured more B-24's (18,500 vs.12,731) the B-17 became the most visible public face of the American World War II bombing effort, especially in Europe. Launching from England in the summer of 1942, gradually ever larger fleets of American B-17's spread out over Nazi-occupied Europe to attack strategic targets of the German war machine over the next 3 years. Early in the war, the British and Americans came up with the idea of around-the-clock bombing of Germany. The British bombed by night, and the Americans bombed by day. The Americans took heavier losses due to being exposed in daylight, and the B-17's also took heavy losses. In a single 376 plane raid in August 1943, 60 B-17s were shot down. That was a 16 percent loss rate and meant 600 empty bunks in England that night. It was during this heavy loss period however that B-17's also acquired a reputation for being tough planes that survive a lot of battle damage and still get their crews home. The B-17 had a ten man crew, and armament depended on which model of B-17 we are talking about, By the middle to end of the war, most B-17's had two .50 caliber machine guns on top, two on the bottom, two in the rear, one on each side shooting through open windows, and typically one or two in the nose. The bomb load could carry up to 4800 pounds of bombs. Despite the huge losses the Allies persisted, and over time the bloody bombing campaign worked. The Germans had to move or hide their factories, most major cities were reduced to ruins, and by the end of the war the Germans had no fuel as all the refineries had been destroyed or their oil fields had been captured.
