The terms "high" (above the bomber), "level" (at the same altitude as the bomber) and "low" (below the bomber) further refine the location of the enemy. Thus "twelve o'clock high" meant the attacker was approaching from directly ahead and above. This location was preferred by German fighter pilots because, until the introduction of the Bendix chin turret in the B-17G model, the nose of the B-17 was the most lightly armed and vulnerable part of the bomber. Enemy fighter aircraft diving from above were also more difficult targets for the B-17 gunners due to their high closing speeds. Bartlett's wife, actress Ellen Drew, named the story after hearing Bartlett and Lay discuss German fighter tactics, which usually involved head-on attacks from "twelve o'clock high". Radio and television Gregory Peck repeated his role as General Savage on a Screen Guild Players radio broadcast on September 7, 1950. Twelve O'Clock High later became a television series of the same name that premiered on the ABC network in 1964 and ran for three seasons. Robert Lansing played General Savage. At the end of the first season, Lansing was replaced by Paul Burke, who played Colonel Joseph Anson "Joe" Gallagher, a character loosely based on Ben Gately from the novel. Much of the combat footage seen in the film was reused in the television series. Many of the television show's ground scenes were filmed at the Chino, California, airport, which had been used for training Army pilots during the war, and where a replica of a control tower, typical of the type seen at an 8th Air Force airfield in England, was built. The airfield itself was used in the immediate postwar period as a dump for soon-to-be-scrapped fighters and bombers, and was used for the penultimate scene in The Best Years of Our Lives when Dana Andrews relives his wartime experiences and goes on to rebuild his life. References Informational notes Citations Further reading Army Air Forces Aid Society. The Official Guide to the Army Air Forces. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1944. Caidin, Martin. Black Thursday. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1960. . Caidin, Martin. Everything But the Flak. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1964. Caidin, Martin. Flying Forts: The B-17 in World War II. New York: Meredith Press, 1968. Dolan, Edward F. Jr. Hollywood Goes to War. London: Bison Books, 1985. . Hardwick, Jack and Ed Schnepf. "A