Boeing B-17D Flying Fortress
In the 1930s, war planners for the USAAC saw that future wars, especially in the Pacific, would be fought over wider and wider ranges—ranges that the present bombers used by the service, such as the twin-engined Martin B-10, would never be able to adequately cover. By the mid-1930s, strategic bombing concepts as espoused by Guilio Douhet, Hugh Trenchard, and William “Billy” Mitchell were also gaining ground, and despite US Navy opposition, the USAAC went ahead with a long-range bomber proposal in 1934. This proposal required a bomber that would be able to fly 2000 miles at 10,000 feet or more, at speeds above 200 miles an hour. Douglas, Martin and Boeing all submitted designs.
Boeing’s design, the Model 299, was a scaled-down version of the massive XB-15 bomber the company had built in 1934. The XB-15 had been far too slow to survive even the fighters of its day, but the Model 299 was more streamlined, capable of carrying nearly 5000 pounds of bombs at 250 mph, and had five .30 caliber machine guns placed around the aircraft, most noticeably in a nose turret taken from the XB-15. This earned it the nickname “Flying Fortress” from the media, a name that stuck. Unfortunately, the Model 299 prototype crashed during the competition at Wright Field due to pilot error, and the Boeing aircraft carried a then-hefty price tag of nearly $100,000 an aircraft—twice as much as the winning design, the twin-engined Douglas B-18 Bolo.
While the USAAC ordered the Bolo, the Model 299 had shown enough promise that the USAAC also ordered 13 Y1B-17s as test aircraft in January 1936. These aircraft were slightly different than the Model 299, with the main difference switching the engines to the more powerful Wright R-1820 Cyclone, which would remain the Flying Fortress’ powerplant for the rest of its career. This in turn led to the USAAC ordering the Y1B-17 (redesignated B-17A) into production as the B-17B, which further streamlined the design, eliminating the bulky nose turret and enlarging the tail, giving the aircraft more of the “definitive” B-17 profile.
As World War II broke out in Europe, obstacles to B-17 procurement were eliminated, and the design was continually improved by Boeing. The B-17C added self-sealing fuel tanks and crew armor, replaced the “blister” waist gun mounts with more aerodynamic sliding panels, and added a ventral “gondola” below the aircraft to protect from attacks from below. This would be the first B-17 to see combat, as 20 B-17Cs were supplied to the Royal Air Force as Fortress Is. The Fortress I did not do well in combat, mainly due to flawed tactics by the British, who used them in three-aircraft raids from maximum altitude. However, the lessons learned from these early attempts were to be useful later. In the meantime, Boeing incorporated the B-17’s baptism of fire in the B-17D series, adding yet more armor for the crew, improved cooling for the engines, and replacing all but one of the seven .30 caliber machine guns with heavier .50s.
Though only 42 B-17Ds were produced, they would be among the first B-17s that would see combat: about half the number were deployed to the Philippines in anticipation of defending the then-American colony from Japanese invasion. The intention was that the B-17s would be able to reach Japanese bases on Formosa, attacking from high altitude; when news of the attack on Pearl Harbor reached the Philippines on 8 December 1941, General Douglas MacArthur intended to preemptively strike Formosa with his B-17 force. The Japanese struck first, catching two-thirds of the Philippines’ B-17 force on the ground at Clark Field and destroying them. This left a handful of B-17s operating from Del Monte, a plantation airstrip on the southernmost Filipino island of Mindoro. With such a paltry number of aircraft, the B-17s were unable to do much to delay the ultimately successful Japanese invasion, though Japanese fighter pilots acquired a respect for the heavily armed Flying Fortress. The surviving B-17s were ordered to retreat to Australia, evacuating vital personnel from the Philippines in the process, including MacArthur himself.
By this time, the B-17D was clearly obsolete and was replaced by the more advanced B-17E. The D models gradually returned to the United States, where a few served as staff transports and trainers until the end of the war, when they were scrapped. Today, only one B-17D is known to exist: The Swoose, which served in the Philippines as a bomber and in Australia as a transport. The Swoose is, as of this writing, being restored for display at the National Museum of the USAF at Wright-Patterson AFB.
The B-17D in the Malmstrom Museum’s model collection depicts that flown by one of the first American heroes of World War II, Colin Kelly. Kelly, as one of the crews that survived the bombing of Clark Field, flew from Del Monte with the 19th Bomb Group on 10 December 1941 in search of Japanese shipping. Finding a Japanese task force, he came in at low level and scored hits on a warship. Returning to Del Monte, Kelly came under heavy attack from A6M Zero fighters (including Saburo Sakai, who would be the top surviving Japanese ace of World War II). With the B-17 aflame, Kelly ordered the crew to bail out, staying behind to keep the aircraft level, and died when the aircraft exploded. Kelly’s story was reported in the United States, who desperately needed heroes in the dark early days of America’s involvement in World War II.
Kelly was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and his son, then only a year old, given an automatic appointment to West Point by Presidential order; Kelly’s already heroic story was amplified considerably, to the point that it was reported he had dived his burning B-17 into the smokestack of the Japanese battleship Haruna, sinking it. In actuality, Kelly’s bombs had slightly damaged the light cruiser Natori, and the Haruna was nowhere near the Philippines at the time. Nonetheless, Kelly inspired an entire generation of American aviators throughout World War II. Though some of the Philippines’ B-17s were camouflaged, Kelly’s B-17D retained its prewar bare metal finish with early USAAC markings, including a red-white-blue striped rudder.
Boeing B-17D Flying Fortress
In the 1930s, war planners for the USAAC saw that future wars, especially in the Pacific, would be fought over wider and wider ranges—ranges that the present bombers used by the service, such as the twin-engined Martin B-10, would never be able to adequately cover. By the mid-1930s, strategic bombing concepts as espoused by Guilio Douhet, Hugh Trenchard, and William “Billy” Mitchell were also gaining ground, and despite US Navy opposition, the USAAC went ahead with a long-range bomber proposal in 1934. This proposal required a bomber that would be able to fly 2000 miles at 10,000 feet or more, at speeds above 200 miles an hour. Douglas, Martin and Boeing all submitted designs.
Boeing’s design, the Model 299, was a scaled-down version of the massive XB-15 bomber the company had built in 1934. The XB-15 had been far too slow to survive even the fighters of its day, but the Model 299 was more streamlined, capable of carrying nearly 5000 pounds of bombs at 250 mph, and had five .30 caliber machine guns placed around the aircraft, most noticeably in a nose turret taken from the XB-15. This earned it the nickname “Flying Fortress” from the media, a name that stuck. Unfortunately, the Model 299 prototype crashed during the competition at Wright Field due to pilot error, and the Boeing aircraft carried a then-hefty price tag of nearly $100,000 an aircraft—twice as much as the winning design, the twin-engined Douglas B-18 Bolo.
While the USAAC ordered the Bolo, the Model 299 had shown enough promise that the USAAC also ordered 13 Y1B-17s as test aircraft in January 1936. These aircraft were slightly different than the Model 299, with the main difference switching the engines to the more powerful Wright R-1820 Cyclone, which would remain the Flying Fortress’ powerplant for the rest of its career. This in turn led to the USAAC ordering the Y1B-17 (redesignated B-17A) into production as the B-17B, which further streamlined the design, eliminating the bulky nose turret and enlarging the tail, giving the aircraft more of the “definitive” B-17 profile.
As World War II broke out in Europe, obstacles to B-17 procurement were eliminated, and the design was continually improved by Boeing. The B-17C added self-sealing fuel tanks and crew armor, replaced the “blister” waist gun mounts with more aerodynamic sliding panels, and added a ventral “gondola” below the aircraft to protect from attacks from below. This would be the first B-17 to see combat, as 20 B-17Cs were supplied to the Royal Air Force as Fortress Is. The Fortress I did not do well in combat, mainly due to flawed tactics by the British, who used them in three-aircraft raids from maximum altitude. However, the lessons learned from these early attempts were to be useful later. In the meantime, Boeing incorporated the B-17’s baptism of fire in the B-17D series, adding yet more armor for the crew, improved cooling for the engines, and replacing all but one of the seven .30 caliber machine guns with heavier .50s.
Though only 42 B-17Ds were produced, they would be among the first B-17s that would see combat: about half the number were deployed to the Philippines in anticipation of defending the then-American colony from Japanese invasion. The intention was that the B-17s would be able to reach Japanese bases on Formosa, attacking from high altitude; when news of the attack on Pearl Harbor reached the Philippines on 8 December 1941, General Douglas MacArthur intended to preemptively strike Formosa with his B-17 force. The Japanese struck first, catching two-thirds of the Philippines’ B-17 force on the ground at Clark Field and destroying them. This left a handful of B-17s operating from Del Monte, a plantation airstrip on the southernmost Filipino island of Mindoro. With such a paltry number of aircraft, the B-17s were unable to do much to delay the ultimately successful Japanese invasion, though Japanese fighter pilots acquired a respect for the heavily armed Flying Fortress. The surviving B-17s were ordered to retreat to Australia, evacuating vital personnel from the Philippines in the process, including MacArthur himself.
By this time, the B-17D was clearly obsolete and was replaced by the more advanced B-17E. The D models gradually returned to the United States, where a few served as staff transports and trainers until the end of the war, when they were scrapped. Today, only one B-17D is known to exist: The Swoose, which served in the Philippines as a bomber and in Australia as a transport. The Swoose is, as of this writing, being restored for display at the National Museum of the USAF at Wright-Patterson AFB.
The B-17D in the Malmstrom Museum’s model collection depicts that flown by one of the first American heroes of World War II, Colin Kelly. Kelly, as one of the crews that survived the bombing of Clark Field, flew from Del Monte with the 19th Bomb Group on 10 December 1941 in search of Japanese shipping. Finding a Japanese task force, he came in at low level and scored hits on a warship. Returning to Del Monte, Kelly came under heavy attack from A6M Zero fighters (including Saburo Sakai, who would be the top surviving Japanese ace of World War II). With the B-17 aflame, Kelly ordered the crew to bail out, staying behind to keep the aircraft level, and died when the aircraft exploded. Kelly’s story was reported in the United States, who desperately needed heroes in the dark early days of America’s involvement in World War II.
Kelly was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and his son, then only a year old, given an automatic appointment to West Point by Presidential order; Kelly’s already heroic story was amplified considerably, to the point that it was reported he had dived his burning B-17 into the smokestack of the Japanese battleship Haruna, sinking it. In actuality, Kelly’s bombs had slightly damaged the light cruiser Natori, and the Haruna was nowhere near the Philippines at the time. Nonetheless, Kelly inspired an entire generation of American aviators throughout World War II. Though some of the Philippines’ B-17s were camouflaged, Kelly’s B-17D retained its prewar bare metal finish with early USAAC markings, including a red-white-blue striped rudder.