So many hardships endued, lives risked, and lost, in helping to save a country from a wicked madman. Yet multitudes of their physical successors chose to go to war with God and work to destroy this nation from within, while a relative remnant of true Christians seek to save souls as part of the larger spiritual war.
Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. (2 Timothy 2:3)
When men were men.. the greatest generation !!
We’ve come a long way to maternity flight suits.
Today, the morons in the defense department think the greater outrage is the term “crewman”
I’ve personally spoken to guys from the WW2 museum and the 8th air force museum.
The stories they tell are horrible, especially Black Week.
Is there much doubt that today’s generation would surrender to seek a false peace rather than accept such conditions and fight for the nation?
Just finishing up Ian Toll's trilogy on the Pacific War. These books are highly recommended to get a better understanding of the war in the Pacific, especially as most WW2 histories is European-centric.
For instance, most people are familiar with the Enola Gay atomic bombing of Hiroshima led by Col. Tibbetts but how many know that the second atomic bombing mission to Nagasaki (Bockscar led by Maj. Sweeney) was riddled with problems and almost a complete disaster. Nagasaki was not even the primary target and as the Bockscar was nearly out of fuel, it had to make an emergency landing on Okinawa with just 7 gallons left in the tanks!
In fact, it was discussed initially bringing Maj. Sweeney up on court martial for what was considered a rash of bad decisions on Sweeney's part during the mission. But fortunately, the bombing itself was a success and brought the war swiftly to an end so it never came to be (fortunately, because Sweeney was a good man who did get his crew back safely in the end). This was not known until decades later.
Anyway, a really good set of books on the Pacific War by Ian Toll. Made for fascinating reading from page one.
As a young man, I worked with a man who was at the Chosin Reservoir. He survived the bleeding from his wound because it froze.
One tough SOB.
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
By Randall Jarrell
From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
When the ball turret jammed, and the landing gear collapsed, the ball turret gunner was turned into jelly.
incredible article!
When 19 & 20 year old boys were MEN!
Thank you for sharing this with us.
My grandpa was a corpsman in WW2 and Korea. He said Korea was the coldest he’s ever seen and he didn’t even know it could get that cold. He had to remove fingers, toes, feet, etc on a regular basis. He said if Chinese and Korean buets didn’t kill you, the cold will
My dad was a tailgunner in B24s out of Spinazolla Italy. I miss him a lot.
My father’s brother was the bombardier noted in this section of a B17 book. He and all his brothers served, 2 never came home.
On August 26, 1942 one of eight B-17s that took off from Mareeba Airfield at 4:45am piloted by Captain John Chiles with co-pilot Lt. Jim Dieffenderfer on a bombing mission against a Japanese convoy off Milne Bay. The magneto on engine no. 1 was dead and during take off blew a spark plug on engine no. 2 but proceeded on the mission anyway. The weather inbound to the target was horrible with a ceiling of only 2,000’ or less. Over the target between 6:30am to 7:45am, the formation bombed from roughly 1,500’ and experienced accurate anti-aircraft fire from the ships. A shell exploded above this B-17’s nose wounding both crew members inside. Bombardier Sgt. Earl W. Snyder was hit in the head by shrapnel. Although mortally wounded, he managed to drop their four 500lbs bombs before expiring. Navigator 1st Lt. David Hirsch’s left leg was nearly severed by shrapnel. Engineer Sgt Wathen Cody left the top turret to investigate and found Snyder dead and applied a tourniquet to Hirsch’s leg and dragged him to the flight deck and returned safely. During the attack, B-17F 41-24354 sustained a direct hit from anti-aircraft fire and crashed near the convoy
The standard adiabatic laps rate for moist air is 3°F per 1000 ft of altitude. So if Berlin was 50°F, at 28,000 it would be about about -34°F. Even if it was 70°F in Berlin, it still would be 10 below zero (-ish) at mission altitude.
And if you’re old enough to remember the era before when things like battery-powered socks became reliable, you’re probably amazed everybody in the crew didn’t freeze to death on every mission.
Air crewmen must’ve thought Christmas had come early when the B-29 arrived because from that point on all bombers were pressurized. Just like the modern airliner, the crew rode inside a sealed and climate-controlled “pressure vessel,” and maintaining the integrity of the pressure vessel meant that all the defensive guns had to be controlled remotely, not by an airman in a heated suit and standing in an open window.
They also flew the first land-based bombing mission to Mainland Japan (after Doolittle's carrier-based mission to Tokyo). He later posted to Tinian and was preparing for further bombing missions when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were atom-bombed.
Fascinating stuff! Didn't know, for example, that conventional bombing continued even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki - with, e.g., 37 aircraft in a daylight mission dropping 902 500-lb pounds of GPs onto Hikari, Japan on Aug. 14; their last mission. 99.5% of the bombs hit within 1,000 ft of their target; this was described as "probably the best precision bombing record in the annals of WW II."
My respect for the U.S. flyers of WW II has only risen!
Regards,
My late father in law Calvin (1923-2003), a B-24 waist gunner during winter-early spring 43-44, preferred not to talk about the carnage, mostly the training, and life on the bases. He grew up the youngest of 7 brothers (plus 2 sisters) who taught him how to hunt, how to shoot, and how to clean a gun. He said his 50 never froze at those extreme temps when entering combat, because he would take it apart and clean the grease off before departure. He saw others’guns freeze, after warning them to clean the grease off them.
His fellow waist gunner insisted that Cal had a super-human aim, and was credited with seven kills. Cal wouldn’t talk about it. He would just say, “I made it home,... many didn’t.” Among the awards for a crew member that completed 30 missions, he also received the DFC. When the subject his service came up at family gatherings, my mother in law would mention the DFC, and Cal would blow it off, “Aww, everybody got that. My awards are being alive, and having a family”. I miss him. He was one of the most honest men I’ve ever known.
My mother’s only brother, a 24 tail-gunner perished over Germany on his first mission. In my father in law’s later years, upon seeing our government become more corrupt (he had kissenger, pappy bush, and puppet clintoon pegged), one day said to me in a somber voice, “Son, I fear your uncle and many others died for nothing”.
Historical bookmark.
Great article, great thread. Thanks for posting.