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

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 bein