Air warfare of World War II 1920s summarised the faith that airmen during and after World War I developed in the efficacy of strategic bombing. Many said it alone could win wars, as "the bomber will always get through". The Americans were confident that the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber could reach targets, protected by its own weapons, and bomb, using the Norden bombsight, with "pickle barrel" accuracy. Japanese aviation pioneers felt that they had developed the finest naval aviators in the world. The Luftwaffe was the German Air Force. The pride of Nazi Germany under its leader Hermann Göring, it learned new combat techniques in
The Rhyme of the Flying Bomb The Rhyme of the Flying Bomb "The Rhyme of the Flying Bomb" is a narrative poem written by Mervyn Peake in 1947, and published with his felt-pen illustrations in 1962. A sailor wandering in London during a World War II air-raid finds a newborn baby in the debris. He takes refuge with the child in an empty church, where it amazes him by levitating and speaking. A dialogue follows between the child, fresh from eternity, and the man mired in the temporal world. At dawn a flying bomb falls on the church, killing them both. The poem was set to