Word: bombers
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When the first Spits and Thunderbolts started their escort work last spring, trigger-itchy gunners of Forts and Liberators warned them that it was hard to distinguish between friend & foe in an air battle. Some friendly fighters were shot down before fighters learned never to point their noses at bombers, as attacking Nazis do. Some bomber men had to be taught better recognition and understanding of fighter tactics...
Most famed and photographed member of an Eighth Air Force heavy-bomber squadron is not a pilot but a grotesque little North African donkey. Her name: Lady...
Change by Range. But soon Major General William Kepner's Eighth Fighter Command radically changed bomber operations along the Britain-to-Germany airways. His seasoned combat pilots have made clannish bomber men welcome their fighter escorts. One of the best of the bomber's new friends is a silent, rosy-cheeked Group Commander, Colonel William J. ("Wild Bill") Cummings Jr., who was on Clark Field when the Japs attacked the Philippines, made his way to the Eighth by way of Corregidor, Java and Australia. In some five months, Cummings has led Thunderbolts over Bremen, Cologne, Emden...
...Bombers' Pets. The bomber men have other favorites in the Eighth Fighter Command: Captain Walker Mahurin, 25, has the highest U.S. score in the theater: 13 kills. Twice he downed three Nazis in a day; twice he hit a daily double in his Thunderbolt. Captain Joe Meyer alone fought off a dozen Germans, safely shepherded home two crippled F-38s and a wounded Fortress. Lieut. Colonel Eugene Roberts believes in tight formations. His group's score: 36 Germans destroyed, seven U.S. planes lost...
...Germans moved their fighter defenses farther and farther inland, the long-range fighters began to look pretty good to the bomber pilots...