Page 148 - James Rodger Fleming - Fixing the sky

4.6 Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, 493rd Bomb Group, landing in England with the aid
of FIDo, November 16, 1944. Note the giant flames behind the airplane. (national
archives photo a9004, detail)

aircraft were grounded due to poor visibility. RAF Coastal Command air-
craft on anti–U-boat patrol used FIDo frequently. on one occasion, a lost
Lysander aircraft landed on a runway that had been cleared of fog. When
FIDo was turned off, fog once again enveloped the aircraft. Reportedly,
the pilot wandered across the tarmac for quite some time before finding the
control tower.
The success of FIDo was presented to a war-weary public as almost a mira-
cle. Newspapers proclaimed it as a lifesaver and a triumph for British aviation.
Those involved in administering the project credited FIDo with shortening the
war and saving the lives of up to 10,000 airmen. Military historians are fond of
invoking “the fog of war” as they struggle to reconstruct events. In the case of
England, the fog was literal. An ice fog persisted during the opening days of the
Battle of the Bulge, when FIDo supported Allied aviation. But during the long
campaign, the weather cleared and much of the tactical air support came from
the Continent, not England. Thus contemporary evaluations of the overall suc-
cess of FIDo in “shortening the war” may have been somewhat optimistic and
self-serving. 48

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