[redangus]

They were offering flights on this plane at the upcoming air show. Lucky the crash didn’t happen with paying customer aboard. That would have just added to the tragedy.

My dad served as a waist guner on a B17 during WWII.

[Inspectorette]

My late father-in-law was a bombardier in a B-17 that got shot down. He had a bad parachute landing, breaking both knees. Got captured by the Germans, and was part of the Sagan Death March. He spent the rest of WWII in a German prison camp.

He never talked about it until he was quite elderly. Just came home, went back to work and raised his family. He rests with the thousands of his brothers in arms in Arlington National Cemetery.