RAF Fairford, England and Blida near Algiers, Algeria • June 9/10, 1944 In planning the successful June 6, 1944, sea- and airborne invasion of German-occupied Normandy, France, Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, fully appreciated the necessity of coordinating French Resistance actions with the Allies’ strategic and tactical plans…
Clark Field, Philippines • May 29, 1945 On this date in 1945 3 test versions of the B‑32 4‑engine Dominators made their first combat appearance in World War II. Leaving Clark Field 60 miles/97 kilometers north of the Philippine capital of Manila, the Dominators targeted a Japanese supply depot less than a flight hour away. Four more B‑32 field…
RAF Ringway, Manchester, England • January 9, 1941 On this date in 1941 a prototype 4-engine heavy bomber took off from RAF Ringway in the English county of Cheshire on its maiden flight. Designed by Avro—an initialism of the company’s founder Alliott Verdon-Roe—the best-known British bomber of World War II was named after the historic county of…
London, England • September 21, 1944 On this date in 1944 some 147 of 154 dispatched B‑17 Flying Fortresses bombed the synthetic oil plant at Ludwigshafen, an industrial city on the Rhine River in West-Central Germany. The sortie was one of 7 (for a total of more than 1,400 B‑17s) that unloaded high-explosive and incendiary…
Washington, D.C. · December 31, 1943 By this date in 1943 Boeing delivered its 92nd B‑29 Superfortress to the U.S. government after the giant bomber began rolling off the assembly line the previous September. Even before the country was at war and government funds had been allocated, Boeing had produced a prototype of the long-range…
London, England · September 21, 1944 On this date in 1944 some 147 of 154 dispatched B‑17 Flying Fortresses bombed the synthetic oil plant at Ludwigshafen, an industrial city on the Rhine River in West-Central Germany. The sortie was one of seven (for a total of more than 1,400 B‑17s) that unloaded high-explosive and incendiary bombs on…
London, England · August 4, 1944 The British had begun deploying the first of several bunker-buster bombs (Tallboy and its successor Grand Slam) in 1944 while the Americans had nothing similar to deploy. On this date in 1944 the U.S. Eighth Air Force kicked off Operation Aphrodite, a program developed in total secrecy and designed…
London, England · July 8, 1941 On this date in 1941, five months before the United States was drawn into World War II, the Boeing B‑17 Flying Fortress was flown in combat for the first time, this by the Royal Air Force in an attack on the North German port of Wilhelmshaven. The first production model,…
London, England · February 20, 1944 On this date in 1944, while Soviet armed forces were ridding their country of the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front, U.S. and British air forces embarked on Operation Argument in the skies over the Western Front. Unofficially dubbed “Big Week,” Operation Argument was an intensive 6‑day air campaign…
Savannah, Georgia · January 28, 1942 On this date in 1942 the fledgling U.S. Eighth Air Force was activated at Savannah Air Force Base in Georgia. Second-in-command Brig. Gen. Ira Eaker was sent to England to form and organize its bomber command, the VIII Bomber Command. An advanced detachment was established at RAF Bomber Command…