20 bombing missions was a lot. Most guys didn’t make it that far before they got shot down or wounded. My great uncle got shot down on his 15th mission and spent the rest of the war in a POW camp.
Damn, that had to have been pretty rough. Although I do not think it was quite as bad as the German soldiers in Russian POW camps. I met one of those back in Arizona in the late 1990’s. He heard me say something in Russian in a restaurant and almost had a fit.
My father served with Stewart and received his DFC from him. He was an admirer of Stewart because he did fly with his crews, most times in the lead plane. I remember my dad saying that when Doolittle came in he raised it to 30 missions and my dad knew then he wouldn't make it. He was close to his 20 missions when this happened. He made the extra 10 and came home with 30.
Dad always liked Stewart and his movies and would speak of wanting to go meet him once again as late as the 60's and 70's. For whatever reason, he thought Stewart would remember him. Maybe he would have.
My dad was in the Army Air Corps during WWII — a waist gunner. I loved to pump him for info on his time in the service. He had lots of funny anecdotes, stories about Northern boys and Southern boys, city and country, hijinx on leave, etc., but very little about the war stuff. Only once, when we were talking about it, he shook his head and said in a low voice, “We bombed the hell out of those Germans.” I’m sure he had plenty of stories about laying waste to entire neighborhoods, bombing the wrong targets, and all the usual horrors of war. He also said that after a certain number of missions you were supposed to be sent home, but that number was increased several times. He felt himself very lucky to have come out of it unscathed.