the four-engine B-17 boasted a range that would allow it to strike targets hundreds of miles away. The Flying Fortress, as the plane became known, appeared able to fulfill the old prophecy Billy Mitchell had made of dominating the seas from the skies and sending an invading force to the watery depths before it could near the shore. By stockpiling Flying Fortresses, the Philippines could become what Stimson called a “self-sustaining fortress.” By November 1941, he would see to it that the Philippines had thirty-five of these planes, more than double the number in Hawaii.
