JF Ptak Science Books Post 2824
This is quite the piece of anti-U.S. Propaganda, printed in 1943 and targeted so to speak against the B-17 Flying Fortress. (I’m not sure why this is in French, though no doubt it was focused on occupied territories in France and Belgium and other areas reached by Lingua Franca.) This was a difficult piece to work through given my tender spot for this aircraft–I’ve long admired it, and was even a passenger on one many years ago (it was much louder than I expected). As a piece of propaganda I would have expected to see more copies of this here and there, but as it turns out there is only one copy (at Nanterres) located by WorldCat–this in mind I’ve reproduced the whole of the very short work.
[Front and rear covers.]
The little pamphlet got to business straightaway, claiming on the back of the title page that the “Flying Fortress” suffered terribly at (“terrorist raid”) Schweinfurt—true enough for the 8th Air Force, though the numbers aren’t quite right. The author tells us that the “Flying Fortress” was actually “the Flying Coffin”. “This is how the Americans call their heavy four-engine lighters [the “Flying Fortress”]. The harsh reality, the inexorable practice of fighting has long since given them another name: that of flying coffins. C’est ainsi aue les americains appelent leurs bombrdiers lourds quadrimoteurs. la dure realite, l’inexorable practique des combats leur a depuis longtemps fqit attribuer un autre nom: celui de cercueils volantes.”)
In the explosive scene on the page there’s a picture of mass destruction of B-17’s being blown out of the sky—this a result of the (“tight”) formation flying that the writer says used to be a strength, but now with new (German) weapons would prove to be the 17’s weakness. (“The greater the function, the bigger their devastation.”)
The next scene, a two-pager, is heartbreaking and brutal. “Voila ce qui les attend” it shouts–”this is what awaits them”! And then, boldly beneath the scene, the pamphlet repeats the Flying Fortress is the Flying Coffin claim.