There is no such thunder in history -- nor ever will be again -- as the deep-throated roar of the mighty, four-engined B-17s that streamed across the skies in World War II. The long runways are silent now, the men and planes are gone.

But out of the massive files of records available, and the memories of the men who flew, Martin Caidin has assembled this dramatic portrait of America's most formidable heavy bomber of the war.

The B-17: The Flying Forts recreates a vanished era and a great and gallant plane -- a plane that could absorb three thousand enemy bullets, fly with no rudder, and complete its mission on two engines. A plane that American pilots flew at Pearl Harbor, Tunis, Midway, Palermo, Schweinfurt, Regensberg, Normandy, and Berlin, in thousands of missions and through hundreds of thousands of miles of flak-filled skies. A plane that proved itself in every combat theater as the greatest heavy bomber of World War II.