Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany

by Donald L. Miller

A German fighter pilot later explained the effectiveness of these frontal attacks. Because of the concentration of fire from the massed bombers and the density of the cone of fire, the most dangerous distance for the attacker was between 1,000 and 600 meters. “Once you are nearer than that . . . the smallest [aiming] error . . . will cause the whole cone of fire to miss you . . . and you have a chance of bringing them down. . . . You can kill the crew straight away [or hit] the engines and the [fuel] tanks.” On subsequent missions, as German fighters pressed their nerve-rattling attacks to within a hundred yards of the bombers, and as losses to fighters continued to mount, some forward-facing crewmen began to develop nearly disabling fears that a Focke-Wulf carrying a dead pilot would smash directly into them. Of the original crews assigned to the 306th Bomb Group, which flew its first mission in early October 1942, 30 percent of the pilots and co-pilots were killed in action. A morale-building poster was put up on a bomber base in East Anglia. Under the face of a grinning pilot was the challenge, “Who’s afraid of the new Focke-Wulf?” An airman pinned a piece of paper on it, with the words, “Sign here.” Every flying officer in the group, including the group commander, put his signature on it.