Overrated? Underrated?

Fredric Smoler’s rating of the B-17 bomber may catch more flak than last year’s smear of Robert E. Lee. As an old B-17 navigator, I was livid! Then I saw his version of the most underrated warplane. Now I can see it all. Smoler doesn’t like the name Flying Fortress because the B-17s couldn’t bomb Germany off the map without a lot of them being shot down. But the picture of the Buffalo shows that never has an airplane been so aptly named. So I guess it’s all in the name.