To reduce any confusion, I have almost entirely used American equivalent ranks when discussing the German military. Aside from being difficult to spell and pronounce, the various military entities, the Waffen SS, the Volkssturm, and the regular army (the Heer), all had their own terminologies for the same ranks. The word Wehrmacht has been generally but incorrectly identified with the army. Wehrmacht is the umbrella term for all three services: the Luftwaffe (Air Force), the Kriegsmarine (Navy), and the Heer (Army). Also, to the best of my knowledge, no such unit as the Seventy-Fourth Armored Regiment existed in the U.S. Army during World War II.
– Robert Conroy, June 2011
CHAPTER 1
The B17G bomber was almost universally referred to as the “Flying Fortress,” and for good reason. Painted olive drab on top to blend with the ground below, and with a sky blue belly for camouflage from enemies looking skyward, the bombers weighed more than thirty tons and bristled with. 50 caliber machine guns. The designers at Boeing originally felt that each bomber would be able to defend itself against attacks by enemy fighters, and still deliver up to three tons of bombs far into Germany. She could speed over Europe at nearly three hundred miles an hour, had a range of nearly two thousand miles, and could fly at an altitude of more than thirty-five thousand feet. Everyone felt it was a helluva plane.
Like many well-laid plans, it didn’t work out that way. Despite all her weapons, the bomber was vulnerable to attacks by German fighters, in particular the swift and deadly Messerschmitt 109G, a sleek single-engine fighter that savaged the formations when the bombers were required to fly without escorts. Since American fighters had much shorter ranges than the bombers, Nazi fighters often waited until escorts ran short of fuel and had to depart. The drop tank on the American P51 fighter was supposed to stop that and, in large part it did. Range was extended and bombers were better protected.