Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress Units of the Mediterranean Theater of Operations following Airfields: Most combat airfields were temporary wartime facilities quickly constructed with pierced-steel planking runways and parking areas, with tents used for personnel quarters and a few wooden buildings used for operations. In Tunisia and Italy, some captured German Luftwaffe or Italian Air Force (Regia Aeronautica) airfields were repaired and placed into service. Today, most show little evidence of their existence other than some faint outlines in agricultural fields. Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress Units of the Mediterranean Theater of Operations The Mediterranean Theater of Operations (MTO) was the second-largest user of the B-17 Flying Fortress during World War II. There
RAF Bomber Command aircrew of World War II aircrew were given the task of flying a required number of operations, an "operational tour", usually of about 30 operations (missions in USAAF terminology). On completion of an operational tour the airman (and often his complete crew as they tended to remain very tight-knit, always flying together) would be "screened" (taken off operational flying) and split up as they received their future postings which would frequently be serving at Operational Training Units or Heavy Conversion Units preparing the next groups of young bomber crews for their postings to operational squadrons. Between March 1943 and the early summer of 1944 the