A B-17 "Flying Fortress" (bottom left) and a B-24 "Liberator" (top right). These two heavy bombers were the backbone of the U.S. 8th Air Force in World War II and were the first to fly precision daylight bombing raids over occupied Europe. Although the B-17 is the more famous of the two there were actually twice as many B-24s built and flown during the war. Besides totally destroying entire cities (like Hamburg and Dresden in the famous "1000 plane raids"), these bombers also accounted for almost half of all German aircraft shot down in aerial combat in the European theater.