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 Following the end of World War II, the Flying Fortress was rapidly withdrawn from USAAF service, being replaced by the B-29 Superfortress.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
RAF Bomber Command aircrew of World War II although 9,838 became prisoners of war. During World War II 156 aircrew taken prisoner of war successfully escaped from German prisoner of war camps in Western Europe and 1,975 airmen evaded capture being hidden by local resistance groups after being shot down in Western Europe. It is reported that more than half of the escapers and evaders were RAF Bomber Command airmen. A recent specialized study of airmen "evaders" shot down over Western Europe states that a post-war summary prepared by British Military Intelligence (MI9) recorded that 695 officers and 1,270 enlisted men had evaded capture; however, the study identified