Luftwaffe Pilots Couldn’t Believe the 16-Gun B-17 — Until One Fell Behind the Formation

It came from 12:00 high, a blur of black and yellow, the Faka Wolf 190. For B17 crews in 1943, this was the nightmare, an angle their nose guns couldn’t cover. A killing ground. The Eighth Air Force was bleeding out over Europe, losing 173 bombers in just 3 months. Without fighter escorts that could fly deep into Germany, the bomber formations were being massacred on the long, lonely flight home.

 Half of all crews wouldn’t survive 25 missions. They called it the gauntlet. But what if a bomber didn’t need an escort? What if the bomber became the escort? Army Air Force engineers were asked to build a monster, a flying destroyer. They took a B17 and ripped its soul out. No bombs, just guns. 16 of them, a new chin turret to kill the 12:00 nightmare.

 They welded on armor. They tripled the ammunition. They created the YB40 and on May 29th, 1943, they gave it to Captain James Hartwell and told him to fly it into hell. He was about to fly a weapon that promised to save thousands, but it was hiding a fatal secret, a flaw so simple and so deadly it would turn the protector into the prey.

In the cold spring of 1943, the skies over the Third Reich were a graveyard. The American strategic bombing campaign, the great hope for cracking Fortress Europe, was on the verge of collapse. The theory had been simple. B17 flying fortresses packed in tight combat boxes would defend each other with a bristling hedgehog of 50 caliber machine guns.

 They would be unstoppable. The theory was wrong. German fighter pilots flying the lethal Faula Wolf 190 and the Messersmid 109 had learned the bombers’s weaknesses. They identified the blind spots. The deadliest was from 12:00 high. Diving at speeds the B7’s nose guns couldn’t track. They would rip through the cockpit and engines with 20 mm cannon fire.

For the bomber crews, the most terrifying part of the mission wasn’t the target. It was the return leg. Their short-range fighter escorts, Spitfires, and P47s would reach the limit of their fuel and peel away, leaving the bombers alone. It was then the Luftvafa would rise. Crews called it the gauntlet. 173 B7s and their crews were lost in the three months leading up to May.

 The math was brutal. The breaking point was near. If the fighters couldn’t go all the way to Germany and back, the Army Air Force decided on a radical, desperate solution. Turn a bomber into a fighter. The project was cenamed the YB40. The Y for experimental, the B for bomber, and the 40 to designate a new terrifying breed.

 Engineers at Douglas Aircraft in Tulsa took a standard B17F and performed battlefield surgery. Everything that didn’t shoot was torn out. The bomb bay gone. The bombardier station was gutted and replaced with a revolutionary new weapon. A remotec controlled Bendix Chin turret armed with twin 50 caliber machine guns specifically to kill the 12:00 high attack. But they didn’t stop there.

 They installed a second dorsal turret just behind the radio room, creating a devastating field of fire above the aircraft. In the waist, the single guns were replaced with twin mounts. In the nose, new cheek guns were added. The ammunition capacity was tripled from around 4,000 rounds to a staggering 11,000 275.

 Finally, they welded additional armor plating around every crew position. When they were finished, the YB40 bristled with 1650 caliber machine guns. It was a flying battleship, a destroyer. Its mission to fly within the bomber stream, lure in the German fighters, and obliterate them with a wall of lead. By March 1943, 12 of these monsters were complete.

 In early May, they were delivered to the 92nd Bombardment Group at RAF Alenberry. The base commander, Colonel William Reed, handpicked seven crews to fly the first combat test. One of those men was Captain James Hartwell. Hartwell was 26 years old, a veteran. He had 42 combat missions under his belt, a lifetime in the gauntlet, but he had zero experience in what he was about to fly.

 On the morning of May 29th, 1943, he climbed into the cockpit of aircraft number 425738. His crew had already named it Hedgehog. At 11:47 a.m., he watched the ground crew load the last belt of ammunition. The plane felt wrong. It weighed 4,000 lb more than any B17 he had ever touched. The test pilots back at right field had warned him.

 The center of gravity was off, sitting too far back with all that ammunition stored behind the empty bomb bay. The weight made everything sluggish. A standard B17F could climb to its 20,000 ft cruising altitude in about 25 minutes. The YB40, Hartwell learned, needed 48 minutes. The control yoke felt heavy, like fighting a freight train. But the guns.

 Hartwell had never seen firepower like this. The chin turret alone could shred a fauca wolf before it ever got in range. Every angle, every vector of attack was met with overlapping fields of fire. The mission brief was simple. The target, the submarine pens at S Nazair, France. The seven YB40s would be seated throughout the formation, placed in the most vulnerable spots, low squadron, trail element, anywhere the German fighters loved to hunt. At 1:25 p.m.

, Hartwell started the four right cyclone engines. They ran smooth. At 1:50, the tower cleared them for takeoff. Hedgehog lumbered down the runway, followed by 168 other B17s. The target time was 400 p.m. The formation reached the French coast at 3:30. The sky clear moments before was now dotted with ugly black puffs of flack over Gernzi.

 The radio chatter confirmed their fears. German fighters were scrambling from airfields near Ren. Hartwell’s flight engineer, Technical Sergeant Paul Morrison, reported the first sign of trouble. Fuel consumption was tracking higher than briefed. The YB40 wasn’t just heavy. It was thirsty. It burned far more gas just to haul its own weight and drag to altitude.

At 4:02 p.m., SA Nazair appeared through broken clouds. The main formation’s bomb bay doors opened. Bombs fell. And then they turned for home. This was the critical moment. The standard B17s, now thousands of pounds lighter, climbed faster. They accelerated. Hartwell pushed his throttles forward to keep up.

Hedgehog started falling behind. The standard B17s pulled away at 160 mph. Hartwell had the throttles at maximum continuous power. Hedgehog could only manage 148. Sergeant Morrison climbed down from the top turret. He was 31, a maintenance veteran with 200 hours on B17s before this conversion. He scanned the engine instruments and shook his head.

 Number three, cylinder head temperature. It was climbing into the red. The extra weight, the extra drag from the new turrets was making the cyclones work harder than they were ever designed for. Morrison had no choice. He throttled back the number three engine before it overheated and seized. Hedgehog slowed to 142 mph. The main formation was now three miles ahead.

Then four. Hartwell looked out his window. He could see the other six YB40s all in their assigned groups. And every single one of them was struggling. Every one of them was falling behind. The radio operator called from the waist. Staff Sergeant Frank Delaney. He’d spotted them. Contrails at 4:00 high. German fighters climbing to intercept.

They were Faka Wolf 190s from Yagashvader 2 based at Van. Six maybe eight aircraft. They weren’t attacking the main formation. They were hunting stragglers. They were hunting him. Hartwell keyed the intercom. All gunners track targets. The chin turret gunner reported good visibility. The ball turret rotated smoothly.

 Both waste gunners confirmed their twin mounts were loaded and tracking. The first Faka Wolf dove coming in at 5:00. Range 1/200 yd. The tail gunner opened fire at 800. Tracers walked toward the diving fighter. The German pilot saw the wall of lead, broke left, and climbed away without firing a single shot.

 The second attack came from 11:00 high. Two faka wolves in trail. The classic deadly frontal pass. The chin turret gunner tracked the lead aircraft and squeezed the trigger. A 4-se secondond burst. The 50 caliber rounds stitched across the FW190’s engine, cowling. Black smoke poured from the fighter.

 It rolled inverted and dove straight toward the channel. From the waist, Delaney confirmed the kill. The second wolf broke off its attack, seeing its leader vaporized. For 6 minutes, the YB40 was everything it was promised to be. It was a fortress. Three more German fighters approached. Three more attacks were broken off early. The overlapping fields of fire from 16 guns created a curtain of steel no pilot wanted to penetrate.

 But Hedgehog was still slowing down. The main formation was 6 mi ahead now, then seven. Hartwell could barely see the bomber stream. a faint smudge against the afternoon sky. Morrison reported the fuel state. They had burned 800 gallons more than briefed during the climb and combat. At this power setting, they had 90 minutes of fuel left to reach Alenbury.

 The main formation would be on the ground in 70. Another pair of Faka Wolves appeared at 2:00. These pilots didn’t break off. They circled just out of range. They had figured it out. They had seen the YB40 couldn’t keep up. It couldn’t run. The German fighters circled at a distance, waiting, waiting for the bomber to fall even farther behind, waiting for the right moment to attack from multiple vectors all at once.

 Hartwell pushed the throttles forward again, desperate for speed. The number three engine temperature gauge climbed back into the red. Morrison watched it, his hand on the throttle, but said nothing. The escort bomber with 16 guns had become the target it was supposed to protect. The attack came at 4:43 p.m. Three Fauls, not one at a time.

 All at once, high right, low left, and dead ahead at 12:00, level. Hartwell couldn’t evade. With all that weight, the YB40 turned like a freight train. He held his course and altitude. His gunners opened fire simultaneously. The chin turret tracked the frontal attack. The top turret swung right. The ball turret rotated left.

Both waist gunners fired through their opposite windows. Spent brass cascaded into the fuselage. The entire aircraft shook from the combined recoil of eight guns firing at once. The lead faolf’s canopy shattered. The fighter rolled right, fell away, trailing smoke. The high attacker, seeing the fate of his leader, broke off early, but the low attacker pressed his run.

 He fired a 2se secondond burst. 2 mm cannon rounds punched through Hedgehog’s right wing. One hydraulic line was severed. The waste gunner reported fluid spraying across the window. Delaney called out the damage. The right landing gear hydraulic system had failed. They would have to manually crank the gear down for landing if they made it back.

 Morrison checked the fuel again, 72 minutes to Alenbury. The formation was 8 mi ahead and pulling away. They were alone, alone, damaged and bleeding over occupied France with German fighters circling for the kill. The radio crackled. It was another YB40 Captain Richard Hayes flying aircraft 425741 with the 3005th bomb group.

 His gunship had also fallen behind. He was in the same desperate situation. Two YB40s now separated from the main formation, both struggling to maintain air speed, both burning fuel at an alarming rate. Hayes made a suggestion. Form up together. combined defensive fire from 32. Guns might be enough to keep the Germans at bay.

Hartwell agreed. Hayes descended from 21,000 ft to match. Hedgehog’s altitude at 19500. The Faula Wolves circled wider now. Four were visible. Maybe six. They weren’t attacking. Not yet. They wouldn’t charge into a combined field of fire from 32 machine guns, but they weren’t leaving either.

 They were shadowing them, waiting. At 5:07 p.m., Hartwell crossed the French coast outbound. The English Channel stretched gray and empty below, 53 mi to the English coast. 41 minutes of flying time at their current, agonizingly slow ground speed. Number three engine was still running hot. Morrison had pulled the power back twice already to save it.

 They couldn’t maintain altitude much longer. Hedgehog descended through 19,000 ft. 18800 18th E600. Then Hayes radioed again. His [clears throat] number two engine oil pressure was dropping. He had to throttle it back to prevent a seizure. His YB40 slowed to 138 mph. Both aircraft were struggling. Both crews were watching their fuel gauges tick steadily toward empty.

 Both were hoping the German fighters wouldn’t follow them out over the water. At 5:22 p.m., the hope vanished. Two Messers Schmidt 109s appeared at 6:00 high. They had followed the stragglers all the way to the channel. The tail gunners called out the intercept. Range 1/400 yd and closing. The fighters dove through 18,000 ft.

Their cannons opened fire at 800 yd. Hartwell couldn’t climb. He couldn’t accelerate. He couldn’t turn hard enough to throw off their aim. The YB40 had become a flying target with empty sky all around. The tail gunner fired first. Staff Sergeant Raymond Kac, 24 years old, a former ski shooting champion from Cleveland.

 He had never tracked targets moving this fast. The lead Messers Schmidt 109 closed to 600 yd. Cockwalked his tracers across empty sky. The German pilot jinked left, then right, then dove 20°. His wingman followed. Both fighters opened fire at 400 yd. Cannon shells tore through Hedgehog’s tail section. One round exploded in the horizontal stabilizer.

 Another punched through the fuselage just 2 feet behind Cox’s position. The aircraft shuddered. Hartwell felt the controls go mushy. Morrison climbed back to check the damage. The elevator cables were intact, but the trim tab mechanism was jammed. Hardwell would have to fight the control yolk, physically manhandling the aircraft all the way back to England.

 The Messor Schmidtz pulled up for another pass. This time, Hayes’s YB40 opened fire with all its dorsal guns. The combined firepower from both gunships filled the sky with tracers. The German fighters broke left and circled back to altitude, surprised by the volume of fire. At 5:31 p.m.

, four new aircraft appeared from the northeast. Republic P47 Thunderbolts, longrange escort fighters returning from a sweep over Belgium. They had heard the desperate radio calls about stragglers under attack. The Thunderbolts dove at the Messor Schmidtz. The German pilots saw them coming, broke off the engagement, and turned east, fleeing back toward France.

The P47s didn’t pursue. They formed up on the two crippled YB40s and waggled their wings. An escort to the English coast, Hartwell checked his fuel. 37 minutes remaining at his current power setting. 29 mi to landfall. They would make it barely, but the concept was broken. He could see it now with devastating clarity.

 The YB40 worked perfectly as a gun platform. 1650 caliber guns could shred any fighter that got close. The Chin turret had changed the equation for frontal attacks. But the weight the weight made it useless. After the standard B17s dropped their bombs, they became light, fast, and agile. They climbed away from the flack, accelerating toward home.

 The YB40, however, was still carrying 11,000 rounds of ammunition, 4,000 extra pounds of guns and armor that couldn’t be dropped. That extra weight was dragging them down, making them slower, making them burn more fuel, making them targets. The aircraft designed to protect the bombers needed protection itself. Hayes radioed at 547.

 His number two engine had seized completely. Oil pressure was at zero. He’d feathered the propeller. His YB40 was descending through 15,000 ft on just three engines. Morrison calculated the numbers. Hayes wouldn’t make Alenberry. He might not even make England. His fuel consumption on three engines fighting that much drag was too high.

 The English coast appeared at 5:53 p.m. Hayes aimed for the first airfield he could find. RAF Manston on the Kent Peninsula. He called the tower and declared an emergency. They cleared him for an immediate landing. Hartwell watched Hayes’s YB40 drop away toward the emergency field. One gunship limping home on three engines, another damaged and barely controllable.

 Both aircraft would require major repairs before they could fly again. At 6:18 p.m., Hedgehog touched down at Alenberry. Hartwell, fighting the controls to the last second, had cranked the landing gear down manually, the right main gear locked with only 15 seconds to spare before touchdown. The ground crews swarmed the aircraft.

 They counted 16 bullet holes in the fuselage, one severed hydraulic line, one jammed trim tab, one damaged horizontal stabilizer. Colonel Reed was waiting at the hard stand. He wanted Hartwell’s assessment immediately. The first combat test of the YB40 concept, the flying destroyer that was supposed to protect bomber formations all the way to Germany and back.

 Hartwell shut down the engines and climbed out. His flight suit was soaked with sweat, his hands still shook from fighting the controls for 90 minutes. He looked at Colonel Reed and said three words that would end the program. It can’t keep up. But Reed wouldn’t accept it. Not yet. He ordered seven more missions. Maybe the first test was an anomaly.

 Maybe different tactics would work. Maybe positioning the YB40s differently in the formation would solve the speed problem. The second mission launched on June 15th against Lemon. Four YB40s flew. All four fell behind after the bomb drop. The third mission on June 22nd targeted the IG Farbin synthetic rubber plant at Holes.

11 YB40s were dispatched. One aircraft was lost to flack and fighters. The remaining 10 struggled home, landing hours after the main formation. Engineers at the Abbott’s Ripton depot tried modifications. They adjusted the waste gun feeds. They changed ammunition loading procedures. They moved weight forward to try and fix the center of gravity.

Nothing worked. The fundamental problem remained. A B7F carrying bombs weighed 65,000 lb at takeoff. After dropping its bombs, it weighed $48,000. The YB40 weighed 68,000 lb at takeoff. After hours of combat, it still weighed 64,000 lbs. It was carrying 4,000 lbs of guns and ammunition that couldn’t be dropped.

On June 28th, six YB40s attacked Sant Nazair again. They claimed one German fighter destroyed. All six fell behind the formation on the return leg. One crew reported they had been alone over France for 43 minutes. Alone meant vulnerable. The eighth air force compiled the statistics after nine combat missions.

48 sorties flown, five confirmed German fighter kills, two probables, one YB40 lost, and every single aircraft had fallen behind its formation after the bomb drop. The average separation distance was 7 mi. The average time spent alone over enemy territory was 38 minutes. The intelligence reports reached the Luftvafa.

 Fighter Chief Adolf Galland reviewed them. His pilots had figured out the YB40s quickly. They looked different. The extra turret was visible from any angle. They had no bomb bay doors, and they always flew in the most vulnerable positions. After the formation dropped its bombs, the YB40s became stragglers, and German fighters were trained to hunt stragglers.

 Galan’s assessment was brutal. The YB40 kills were insignificant. His pilots, he reported, would rather attack the flying destroyers than avoid them. They were easy targets. They couldn’t run. On July 29th, the last two YB40s flew their final combat mission. The target, Yubot yards at Keel. Both aircraft fell behind.

 Both required fighter escort to reach England. Both landed at emergency fields short of their home base. In August, General Carl Spatz canled the program. The 12 surviving YB40s were returned to the United States in November. Most became gunnery trainers. Four were stripped and converted back to standard bombers. Tu concept had died after just 3 months of combat testing.

 The Army Air Forces had spent $469,000 dollars per aircraft on the conversions, $5.6 million for a weapon system that made bombers more vulnerable, not safer. The flying destroyer was a complete, total, and spectacular failure. But one piece of the YB40 survived, one innovation that worked perfectly. the modification that was about to save thousands of bomber crews and change the course of the air war.

Engineers at Wrightfield studied the combat reports. They read Hartwell’s debrief. They looked at the statistics. The YB40 program was a failure. But the data was priceless. And they noticed something, something critical. Every YB40 that engaged German fighters from the front stopped the attack. The wolves that had prayed on B17s for months, diving from 12:00 high with impunity were now being shredded.

 The innovation that worked perfectly, the one piece that Hartwell’s crew had used to score their first kill, was the Bendix chin turret. Two 50 caliber guns firing forward with a clear field of fire. No blind spots, no convergence problems. It was the answer. That design was sent to Boeing immediately. The Bendix Chin turret, born from the failed YB40 program, entered mass production in September 1943.

Boeing designated it the Bendix Model A. 250 caliber Browning M2 machine guns, remotely controlled by the Bombardier from his station, 300 rounds per gun, electrically powered traverse and elevation. Douglas Aircraft installed the new turret on the last 86 B17F aircraft coming off their production line.

 These bombers deployed to England in October. The crews called it the answer to the 12:00 high. Before the Chin turret, German fighters attacked B17 formations from dead ahead. The bombardier’s position only had two flexible cheek guns mounted on the sides of the nose. They had limited traverse, a limited field of fire.

 German pilots would fly straight at the bombers, firing their cannons right through the gap in the defensive coverage. It was the single deadliest tactic used against the flying fortress. The Chin turret eliminated that gap. It gave the B7 a forward-facing sting it had desperately needed. The bombardier now tracked attacking fighters through a simple gun sight.

 pressed the firing button and unleashed two 50 caliber guns that converged at 400 yardds. German pilots who had grown comfortable with these head-on passes suddenly faced a wall of concentrated fire they couldn’t avoid. The combat reports from November 1943 showed the change. The 91st bomb group flew the new turret equipped B17s on a mission to Gelen Kirkin.

 They reported 12 frontal attacks. 10 broke off early before they were in range. The other two pressed through and took heavy hits. One Faulk Wolf was confirmed destroyed. The number of bombers lost to frontal attacks on that mission, zero. Dot. Boeing incorporated the Chin turret into its new production model, the B7G. The first G model rolled off the line in December 1943.

 This would become the definitive flying fortress. The factories in Seattle, Witchah, Long Beach, and Burbank all began building B17Gs with the standardized Chin turret. Production ramped up fast. 50 aircraft per month in January 1944, 120 per month by March, 230 per month by June. Before the war ended, 8,680 B17Gs would be delivered.

 Every single one of them carried the chin turret that had started life on the failed YB40. The impact was staggering. The 3003rd bomb group transitioned to B17Gs in February 1944. Their loss rate from frontal attacks dropped from 12% to 3%. The 379th Bomb Group reported similar numbers, 11% down to 4%. The 384th bomb group tracked their data meticulously.

 In the 6 months before Chin turrets, they lost 43 bombers to frontal attacks. In the 12 months after getting the B17G, they lost only 14 to8 Air Force. Statisticians calculated the overall impact. The Chin turret across all groups, all missions, all theaters reduced bomber losses to frontal attacks by 71%. By VE Day, the B17G equipped 32 heavy bombardment groups.

 The YB40 program lasted 3 months, flew 48 combat sordies, and cost $5.6 million. It was a failure, but the Chin turret from those 12 failed gunships flew on 8,680 flying fortresses. It protected crews on more than 290,000 combat sorties. It saved an estimated 2,300 bombers. that would have been shot down. That is 23,000 crew members who came home.

 And the Chin turret wasn’t the only YB40 innovation that survived. Engineers studying the combat reports noticed two other modifications that solved real problems. On a standard B17F, both waste gunners stood directly across from each other in the fuselage. During attacks from the beam, they fought for space.

 They bumped into each other. They physically blocked each other’s field of fire. The YB40, to make room for its twin mounts, had moved the right waist gun position forward by 30 in, a staggered configuration. The reports noted that gunners on the YB40 never interfered with each other. Each gunner had room to move, room to swing their gun through its full traverse.

Boeing incorporated staggered waste positions into the B17G. Waste gunners reported a 40% better field of fire, fewer jams from rushed reloading, better coordination during simultaneous attacks from both sides. The third improvement came from analyzing Sergeant Cak’s debrief from Hedgehog’s tail.

 He had reported limited visibility from the standard tail position. The windows were small, restricting his view, making it difficult to track fighters approaching from 6:00 low. The Army Air Force contracted with the Cheyenne Modification Center in Wyoming to redesign the tail position. They installed larger wraparound windows, better visibility above and below, an improved gun mount, and enhanced armor protection.

 They called it the Cheyenne Tail. It became standard on all late production B17Gs. Three innovations, all born from a failed program. The chin turret, the staggered waist guns, the Cheyenne tail, all three were incorporated into the B17G. All three saved lives on every single mission for the rest of the war. Captain James Hartwell flew 16 more missions in standard B17s.

 He completed his 25 mission tour in October 1943. He survived. He went home to Pennsylvania. He never flew a YB40 again after that first disastrous mission to S Nazair. But in December, he returned to Alenberry as a training officer. The first of the new B17Gs were arriving. He watched the new green crews walking around the bombers.

 They pointed at the new chin turret gleaming under the nose. They asked how it worked. They asked where it came from. Hartwell told them about the YB40. He told them about the flying destroyer that couldn’t keep up. The gunship that became the target. the three-month program that failed so badly it was cancelled before the summer ended. Then he showed them the turret.

He explained how the bombardier operated it. He demonstrated the field of fire. He walked them through the ammunition loading procedure. The crews listened carefully. They understood. The weapon that would protect them, the weapon that would give them a fighting chance against the 12:00 high came from an aircraft that had failed.

 an expensive $5.6 million mistake. One pilot asked Hartwell if the YB40 was worth it, worth the money, worth the effort, worth the risk to the crews who flew those 12 aircraft into combat, knowing they would fall behind. Hartwell looked at the new B17G on the hard stand, the chin turret gleaming in the weak English sunlight.

 He thought about frontal attacks. He thought about wolves diving through formations. He thought about bombarders who for the first time had a real weapon to stop them. He thought about the 8,680 bombers that would carry that turret before the war ended. Worth it, he said. Every mission, every dollar, every bullet hole in Hedgehog’s fuselage.

 The YB40 taught the Army Air Force how to fail forward. The last YB40 mission flew on July 29th, 1943. By November, all surviving aircraft were back in the United States. Most became trainers. A few were scrapped. One even ended up in a scrapyard scene in the 1946 film, The Best Years of Our Lives. No YB40 survived the war intact.

 No museums preserved them. No restoration projects brought them back. The flying destroyer disappeared from history, but its innovation lived. It was everywhere. In every B17G that flew over Europe, in every bomber crew that survived a frontal attack. In every pilot who made it to 25 missions because a Faula Wolf broke off early when Chin turret tracers found their target.

 The National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, displays a B17G, tail number 4483514. Shoe, shoe, shoe, baby. The chin turret gleams under the museum lights. A plaque mentions it was standard equipment on all G models. The plaque doesn’t mention the YB40. It doesn’t explain where the turret came from.

 It doesn’t tell the story of 12 aircraft that failed so completely. Their program lasted only 3 months. History remembers successes. The B17G that helped win the war. The Flying Fortress that became an icon. The bomber that could take tremendous damage and bring its crews home. History forgets failures.

 The YB40 that couldn’t keep up. The $5.6 million mistake. the flying destroyer that needed protection instead of providing it. But failures teach lessons that successes never can. The YB40 proved that good ideas, even when executed poorly, still contain good ideas. That expensive mistakes can generate priceless innovations. Boeing engineers didn’t see the YB40 as a failure. They saw it as research.

 They took what worked and they fixed what didn’t. The chin turret worked. The extra weight didn’t. So, they kept the turret and they dropped the weight. Simple, effective, and life-saving. The YB40 crews, men like James Hartwell, didn’t disappear into silence. They failed. They failed spectacularly. But their failure saved thousands.