One of my big regrets is that I never talked to him about any of that, since he died when I was in my twenties. By the time I would have been interested in it everyone who might know was dead. Bad son.
My dad was a WWII Navy aviator who flew F4U Corsairs. I asked him about the war many times and he didn’t want to talk about it. He did start talking about it a few years before he passed away. He was almost 90 when he died.
I have an Easter card sent by my uncle Harold, from England, to one of his only siblings (15 yr old twin sisters. One my mom). He told them he would take them out to a movie and ice cream when he got home on leave.
Never happened. Less than three months later, as a tail gunner in 24, he never made it out of the spinning burning ship.
My mom kept that card in pristine condition. She’s gone, so I treat it the same.
In my opinion the tail Gunner was the most dangerous. The NAZIS fighters specifically targeted the tail gunner so they could get a free run on the bomber. I thought that the causality rate was the highest of any crew member at 50%.