B-17 Flying Fortresses of 427th BS 303rd BG carrying GB-1 Glide Bombs raid Cologne on May 28th 1944

If you want to help keep the caffeine flowing The GB-1, also known as the “Grapefruit bomb“ and XM-108 was a glide bomb produced by Aeronca Aircraft for the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. It was intended to allow bombers to release bombs from outside the range of enemy defenses and over 1,000 GB-1s were used in combat before the end of the war. Selected for production over the competing GB-2 and GB-3 due to its simpler control system and its proving more practical for bomber carriage, production of the GB-1 began in May 1943; arriving in the combat zone in September, operational use was delayed due to the limited bombload the glider imposed. The B-17 Flying Fortress bomber could only carry two GB-1s on a mission, one on a rack under each of the bomber’s wings, and the accuracy of the GB-1 proving to be significantly worse than that of ordinary bombs. Despite this, by May 1944 the first releases of GB-1s were undertaken. On May 28th 1944, during the raid pictured in this footage 42 of 113 glide bombs released hit Cologne, after being released 18 miles from the Eifeltor marshaling yard in the city at 195 miles per hour (314 km/h); many failed to hold an electrical charge in their batteries, causing their autopilots to fail. German gunners mistook the bombs for aircraft they were shooting down, claiming over 90 kills. Due to the inaccuracy the bombs demonstrated, the 8th Air Force did not use the glide bombs again. 0:00 B-17 Flying Fortresses each carrying two GB-1 glide bombs en route to the target 0:40 Damaged leading edge of the tail visible on the aircraft filming, possibly from anti-aircraft fire but also could be the result of the impact with a spent cartridge from the guns of another bomber which given the number of guns and tight nature of the combat box formations was not a rare occurrence. 0:51 Glide Bombs are released and immediately the problems with some of the autopilots are apparent. 1:15 With the ordnance released, the aircraft turned towards home. This was to exploit the advantage of the glide bombs that meant it was not necessary to fly over the typically well-defended target. 1:28 Heavy anti-aircraft fire is encountered 1:50 Glide bomb impacts are visible in the target area in the distance. The aircraft visible at 0:07 is 42-102569 that would suffer battle damage over Kyllburg in Germany on January 8th 1945 and consequently crash-landed and was written off.