The Boeing B-17 “Flying Fortress” was well named. Identified as a heavy strategic bomber, the aircraft was capable of carrying up to 4,800 pounds of bombs on the two racks within the fuselage. It had numerous 30 caliber machine guns placed in the nose, tail, on both sides, and a ball turret in the belly of the fuselage. True to its name, this allowed for gunnery protection all around except for directly overhead. Even there in the middle of the saddleback a panel could be removed and coverage overhead was possible. First flown in 1935, the Boeing Company was quick to see the value of the name “Flying Fortress” and had it trademarked. Boeing continued to improve the product and, with the onset of the US into the war, eventually 12,731 were produced. Only the B-17’s sister bomber, the B-24 “Liberator”, was produced in greater numbers, with 18,482 coming off the assembly lines, with over half of those produced by the Ford Motor Co.
Primarily employed by the United States Army Air Forces in Europe, with the US Eighth Air Force based at Thorpe Abbotts airfield in England and the Fifteenth Air Force based in Italy, the B-17 made daylight raids in precision strategic bombing against German industrial and military targets. The British were concentrating on night raids and were better protected by darkness, but the Army Air Forces commanders knew that better precision was available during daytime. However, this tactic resulted in huge losses in the period 1942-1943. Wartime planners originally surmised that with large groups of bombers maintaining close formation, the firepower of the multiple guns would serve as adequate protection. At that time no fighter escort was available for the mass bomber formations. Therefore, any reaction to fighter attacks had to come within the firepower of the bombers. Added to the danger was the fact that a straight, level approach was needed to assure accuracy using the then secret Norden bombsight. This made enemy ground fire, flak, and the harassing Luftwaffe fighters a real danger as a multitude of bombers were knocked out of the skies.
This was the environment in which Captain Flagg and his aircrew in the Wabbit Twacks were called upon to perform their service. With the known, and not unexpected, heavy loss rate, 25 bombing missions was established as the limit, at which point an aircrew member would be sent stateside. Crew members could calculate those odds and they were not good. It was a conclusion reached by many that they would be shot down prior to reaching that magic 25. Mass raids would include as many as 300 bombers. One can only imagine the mind racing when seeing a wingman badly hit and spiraling down to certain death, unless parachutes would show that some got out of the crippled airframe and might, if lucky, survive as a POW in one of the German stalags.
While the moniker of Wabbit Twacks identified Captain Flagg’s B-17 and aircrew, there were not one but nine different aircraft with that identification. As heavy battle damage and other malfunctions required aircraft to be replaced, Roman numerals were added to the name. This began in May 1943 as Wabbit Twacks I and progressed to Wabbit Twacks IX, which identified Jack Wagner’s last mission on September 25, 1943.
Wings Over Cumberland 