It was a major contributor to the Allied air campaign against Germany, and now the B-17 receives a much-deserved account of the many challenges it faced, fought, and won. Comprehensive coverage includes details of the role and function for which the aircraft was created, along with its evolution and testing, revisions and amendments, and its power plant and performance, from 1939 to 1945 as well as postwar examples. Most impressive of all is a section unprecedented in the works of military historians -- a summary of the accomplishments of every B-17 that took part in the war -- all 12,731 of them!