361 American B-17 bombers depart from British bases for the heart of Germany; their escort of short-range P-47 fighters (long-range fighters did not yet exist) leaves them over Brussels, then the Nazi fighters unleash themselves: in the first wave, 20 bombers are shot down, the survivors reach and precisely bomb the Messerchmidt factory in Regensburg, Bavaria (unknowingly, they also destroy the assembly lines of the NE262 jet aircraft that could have turned the tide of the war); in the second wave, 39 bombers are shot down, the P-47s manage to rescue the B-17s over Liège, only one P-47 is shot down, 11 Nazi fighters are shot down; the second wave, after low-precision bombings on the ball bearing factory in Schweinfurt, returns to England (the landings will follow one another for three hours), the first wave lands in North Africa, short of fuel (many ditchings in the Mediterranean, all crews recovered); in total the USAF loses 482 airmen (100 dead, the others captured), 160 aircraft damaged.
