Etymology of the "Flying Fortress" Nickname for the B-17

[CoastieJohn]

Like above......I recall reading many years ago that penning the FF name to it had to do with the number of guns it had to defend itself.

For you bean counters....was there another warbird (anywhere) that had more guns?

Last edited by CoastieJohn on Tue Jan 12, 2021 9:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

[JohnB]

For you bean counters....was there another warbird (anywhere) that had more guns?

The gun-nose B-25Js had something like 18...albeit they were used for attack not defensive firepower...thus negating the "Flying Fortress" symbolism.

[Chris Brame]

If one has access to online newspaper archieves, the two main Seattle papers of the time were The Seattle Times and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

I checked newspapers.com and they don't have any contemporary Seattle papers; the first nationwide application of the name to this aircraft appears to be in an AP story dated July 16, 1935. A UP story from the next day used the phrase "veritable flying fortress". The Kansas City Star published this wire photo on July 17th:

The term "flying fortress" shows up in several contemporary articles in 1934 and 1935 referring to other aircraft such as the A-12 Shrike, the British Fairey Fantome, and a float-equipped Martin B-10. But here's a kicker: the B-17 wasn't even the first Boeing aircraft to get that label:

[Noha307]

Just to beat a dead horse, here are a few more examples of the "flying battleship" metaphor that was mentioned in a previous post:

Back in the days of John Paul Jones, the Navy's job was comparatively simple. Our coastal lines were short. Sea-lanes important to us were not extensive. A string of wooden frigates scattered along the eastern seaboard sufficed to guarantee the integrity of our shores and to maintain for our commerce the freedom of the seas.
For a hundred years our naval problem changed only in degree. Our coast lines were lengthened considerably, and the scope of our seagoing commerce became world wide. Sail gave way to steam, wood to steel, but the strategic and tactical problems that faced Admiral Dewey in 1898 were essentially the same as those of Captain Paul in 1778. We simply built enough of the right kinds of battleship and cruiser to keep up with requirements.
But an event took place in mid-December of 1903 that changed all that. Man learned to fly. Very soon he had learned to fly well enough and far enough so that fortresses ashore and fleets at sea were no longer barriers to the coming and going of an enemy. In less than 40 years after the invention of the airplane, fleets of heavy bombers and swift fighters were in existence that could range for thousands of miles with tons of bombs on board.

(Source: S. Paul Johnson, Flying Fleets: A Graphic History of U.S. Naval Aviation (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1941), 3.)

It continues on this theme for some time. Rather than post the whole wall of text here, click the link in the source above if you want to read the rest.

Planes like the two-engined Consolidated PBY's and the Martin PB2M's will shortly be supplemented by larger four-engined Vought-Sikorsky, Martin, and Consolidated airplanes-battleships of the air, easily capable of patrolling fences thousands of miles off-shore in any weather, carrying guns enough for their own protection and packing away in their bomb-bays missiles large enough to sink battleships.

(Source: S. Paul Johnson, Flying Fleets: A Graphic History of U.S. Naval Aviation (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1941), 8.)

I can't help but think of the failed attempts to use level bombers against ships at Midway and Guadalcanal. Ironic that it was the B-17 that finally proved how impractical the whole exercise was.

Above: Flying battleship-the Consolidated PB2Y-2, in production in 1941.

(Source: S. Paul Johnson, Flying Fleets: A Graphic History of U.S. Naval Aviation (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1941), [unnumbered page].)

Another flying battleship, the Vought-Sikorsky XPBS-1.

(Source: S. Paul Johnson, Flying Fleets: A Graphic History of U.S. Naval Aviation (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1941), [unnumbered page].)

It's really starting to sound like the big flying boats had just as equal a claim to the "Flying Fortress" moniker, or at least the symbolism, as the B-17.

Last edited by Noha307 on Mon Jun 06, 2022 5:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[shrike]

At least one other possible derivation is the use of aircraft in the anti-ship role.
Coastal fortresses defended the coasts and harbors of the country, and a 'flying fortress' extended the reach of those defenses.
That fits with isolationist/defensive nature of American doctrine at the time and follows on the 1904 article cited with the concept of airship 'fortresses'

[Noha307]

Looks like it took them a while to let go of that battleship metaphor. A 1952 Aeroproducts advertisement featuring the XA2J-1:

(Source: eBay)

[JohnB]

That 1952 ad is about a decade too late.
Battleships had been declared obsolete (or at least passe) before the end of WWII.
Remember, the final two of the six proposed Iowa class battleships being cancelled.

[Noha307]

That 1952 ad is about a decade too late.
Battleships had been declared obsolete (or at least passe) before the end of WWII.
Remember, the final two of the six proposed Iowa class battleships being cancelled.

It is quite an ironic comparison considering the XA2J was cancelled as well. Not to mention they neglected to continue the metaphor by depicting it over a Midway-class carrier instead of an Iowa. Perhaps the suggestion is that it was replacing the warship and not augmenting it?

[Noha307]

Martin's marketing department was using the battleship comparison as early as 1923 to describe their MO-1:

"A Battle Ship Mast 10,000 Feet High"-

is the designation that has been given to the Navy M01 all-metal airplane, a product of the Glenn L. Martin organization.

(Source: Aviation via Internet Archive)

Last edited by Noha307 on Mon Jun 06, 2022 5:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Noha307]

As spotted by JohnB in a different thread, the "Super Flying Fortress" name mentioned in a previous post was also applied to the B-17E - presumably in contrast to the earlier "shark fin" variants:

Known as the "Super Flying Fortress." The Boeing B-17E is one of the U.S. Army's deadliest long-range heavy bombers.

(Source: Emanuel Stieri, Building Model War Planes (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1943), 38.)

The gun-nose B-25Js had something like 18...albeit they were used for attack not defensive firepower...thus negating the "Flying Fortress" symbolism.

Besides, North American's publicity department had already decided it was called the "The Flying Pillbox" according to an advertisement...

EDIT (22-10-08): Found another example of gun-based, marketing-driven nickname. This one was coined by Packard for the Hurricane IID:

"Can opener" is the name given the Hurricane-armed with 40mm. guns-for its spectacular tank-busting feats in North Africa.

(Source: Aero Digest via AirCorps Library)

Last edited by Noha307 on Sat Oct 08, 2022 3:10 pm, edited 2 times in total.

[Noha307]

Another book, another mention of the "Super Flying Fortress":

The Boeing B-17E "Super Flying Fortress," the latest model of the famous series, larger and deadlier than its predecessors.

(Source: Lester Ott, Aircraft Spotter (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1941), 17.)

[Noha307]

Although not establishing it as an "official" nickname, the "Super Flying Fortress" nickname even made its way into an AAF publication:

Other Designations: U.S. and England-Flying Fortress and Super Flying Fortress (B-17E)

(Source: Identification of Aircraft for Army Air Forces Ground Observer Corps (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1942), 33.)

[Noha307]

The book Flying Fortress: The Story of the Boeing Bomber, published in 1943 and written with the assistance of, among others, Boeing's chief engineer at the time, Edward C. Wells, provides this claimed origin for the B-17s' name:

It was while the Grandfather was being built that the little group of "believing men with an idea," the people who had fought through the lean and hungry years when the fate of the entire Boeing organization was in doubt, gave Grandfather and his illustrious family a name.

"It's as big as a fortress," someone remarked.

"Sure it is," another man replied. "It can fight like a fortress. You might say it's a flying fortress."

You might say it! The world has been calling it a flying fortress since that day.

(Source: Collison, Thomas. Flying Fortress: The Story of the Boeing Bomber. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1943, 16-17.)

While the anecdote reads a bit too much like marketing spiel to be a perfectly authentic recounting of events, it is interesting in the context of another section earlier in the same chapter:

The original idea for the Flying Fortress was born aboard a battleship.

Back in 1930 Clairmont Egtvedt, then vice president of the Boeing Company and now Chairman, frequently flew from Seattle, Washington, to San Diego, California, where Boeing fighters were based, to spend the weekend chatting with his friend, Admiral Joseph Mason Reeves, commander of Aircraft Squadrons of the Pacific Fleet. They spent many pleasant evening hours aboard the old aircraft carrier, the U. S. S. Langley, as it was tied up at North Island, discussing the nature and use of America's weapons of defense.

Admiral Reeves pointed out that the Air Corps had nothing to offer in the way of a heavy load-carrying weapon that could be compared to the battleship.

"The battleship," Admiral Reeves said, "is the backbone of the Navy. It is the only vessel capable of delivering a final knockout blow to the enemy that dares to attack our country."

At the time naval airplanes were toys compared to the fighting power of battleships of the sea. The Navy's heaviest planes were slow and clumsy patrol bombers which carried only small loads of bombs. The heaviest carrier-based planes were the 90-mile-an-hour torpedo bombers. Dive bombing was just coming into its own. The total weight of bombs that could be laid down on an enemy by America's Naval airplanes was very small indeed compared to the tons of destruction each rifle of a battleship could discharge. And the dive bomber had only a short range.

Was not military aviation being regarded in too limited a sense, Claire Egtvedt asked himself. In the Navy, centuries of experience had developed the battleship as the long, powerful right arm that defeated the enemy. Would there not be greater security for America if she had in the air, as on the sea, a super-weapon which could reach far out and beyond the close-range combat arenas to defeat the enemy before he reached our shores?

(Source: Collison, Thomas. Flying Fortress: The Story of the Boeing Bomber. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1943, 12-13.)

Given the fact that this book lists three employees of Boeing in the acknowledgements, who would presumably have had first-hand experience with origins of the B-17, it seems likely that although a recreated conversation, it is substantively a true story. Further, it is clear from the publication of this book that the company had appreciated the marketing significance of the name and fully embraced it. While it was not technically written by Boeing, it might as well have been given the repeated praise the author lays on the airplane and the substantial contributions to it the company made. (No less than 53 of the 124 photographs came from "Boeing News".)

However, the key point is that, in the context of this book, when the unnamed employee remarked that "it's as big as a fortress" he was recalling the battleship.

As an aside, the "Grandfather" referred to above with a capital letter is the Boeing 299. Interestingly, this name is quite similar to the "Grandpappy" appellation awarded to the XB-15 built by the company. It seems likely there is a connection between the two names.

EDIT: Reading a little bit farther into the book, the following paragraph appears:

During this time Boeing engineers had not been sleeping on their laurels. They had all the while been developing a super-fortress, the XB-15.

(Source: Collison, Thomas. Flying Fortress: The Story of the Boeing Bomber. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1943, 24.)

What is interesting about this statement is that although the Model 307 is mentioned in the book, the B-29 is not, as at the time the book was published in 1943, it would have presumably still been relatively secret. (The most recent entry in a week-by-week list of notable missions is a raid on Tunisia on 5 February 1943 - thirteen days before the second B-29 prototype was destroyed in a crash during its first flight. This gives an approximate idea of when during 1943 the book was written.) It demonstrates that the term "superfortress" was in use years before the B-29 entered service.

EDIT: A quick correction: It seems the most recent mission mentioned in the book was actually an attack on the port of Rotterdam on 4 March 1943. However, the author must have forgot that the year changed after December, as all of the 1943 entries are typo'd as "1942".

Last edited by Noha307 on Sun Apr 07, 2024 5:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.

[JohnB]

Noah307, good find.

I'm not saying It's not " PR talk", but IN PERIOD, comments in a book (more or less) endorsed by Boeing, should be given more weight than later accounts or at least not dismissed out of hand.

I always assumed the "Fortress" had to do with guns, but in retrospect, early model B-17s were hardly over armed (but they were credible for their day).

[Paul Stroud]

Re Noah's post
EDIT (22-10-08): Found another example of gun-based, marketing-driven nickname. This one was coined by Packard for the Hurricane IID:

"Can opener" is the name given the Hurricane-armed with 40mm. guns-for its spectacular tank-busting feats in North Africa.

(Source: Aero Digest via AirCorps Library)[/quote]

6 Squadron RAF operated Hurricane IID's and were nicknamed the Flying Tin Openers, and have had an unofficial logo of one ever since.

https://sixsqnassociation.org.uk/about/1939-1945/