Small B17 bomb bay and bomb load

[George Hopp]

There has never been any doubt that the B-17 carried a smaller bomb load than the Halifax and Lancaster. So what? And, Bomber Command dropped great quantities of bombs on the German refineries in the last few months of the war, after the German early warning system had been destroyed, and the refineries had already been mortally wounded by the USAAF. Again, so what? Reading the official histories clearly shows that while the British were burning cities and killing civilians, the USAAF was decimating the German fighter arm, destroying the German war-making capacity, bringing transportation in western Europe to a virtual standstill, and making D-Day possible. They all enforce the perception that it's not the size of the bomb load, but how intelligently the bomb load is used.