B-17 Flying Fortress units of the United States Army Air Forces 2d Bombardment Group, Langley Field, Virginia on 11 January 1936; the first production B-17B was delivered on 29 March 1939 also to the 2nd Bombardment Group. A total of 12,677 production Fortresses was built before production came to an end. In August 1944, the Boeing B-17 equipped no less than 33 overseas combat groups. The last Boeing-built B-17G was delivered to the USAAF on 13 April 1945. Following the end of World War II, the Flying Fortress was rapidly withdrawn from USAAF service, being replaced by the B-29 Superfortress. Literally thousands of Fortresses used in combat in Europe by Eighth
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