November 1943

By Thanksgiving the German Air Force no longer was a serious threat to the strategic bombers. The fighters still made raids but they were limited to hit and run attacks which never had the effectiveness of the massive ones they made before the tankers. The flying filling station had changed the face of the war. Allied planes could go wherever they wished over the continent in relative safety. A loss of one percent of the aircraft on a flight became reason for concern. Only the flack guns posed any real threat to the bombers. Allied bombing was reducing the supplies of ammunition so even these guns were becoming less effective. Unfortunately the German industry had dispersed and much of the critical portions been moved under ground. The German military was badly hurt but it still had to be beaten on the ground and there were no forces to accomplish that. Aircraft could make an area untenable, it couldn’t hold ground.

Bob Plank was handed new orders. He had been promoted and was being transferred back to Colorado with his crew. As usual with the military there was no explanation. Even his CO had no idea why Bob was being transferred. He wasn’t scheduled for rotation for two months. Four of the six original tanker crews were transferred with him. The other two crews would remain. Charlie Miller, one of the pilots was promoted to leader of flight 99.

December 1943 – Colorado

Colonel Doolittle called the aircraft crews into the ready room. When all were seated he uncovered a picture on the board. It was a B-17, but it didn’t look exactly like the B-17 they were flying. The nose looked different, the wings were thinner and the engine nacelles were more streamlined. He began, “Tomorrow Boeing will deliver twenty four of these to us. There’ll be two types. Eight will be fitted as bombers and sixteen as tankers.” Plank thought, “Two tankers for each bomber? That was unusual.” “We’ll train with them until we’re proficient, then we’ll be assigned to Midway. We’ll be the first American forces to fly over the islands of Japan since the war began. For the time being, we’ll not bomb, we’ll be doing photo recon work.”

“Why can’t we drop bombs?”

“We desperately need to know what’s happening in the islands and there’s no other way to obtain that information. To carry bombs would jeopardize our primary mission. We will some day get a chance to bomb, but not now.”