I know the other service branches kind of make fun of the Air Force for their less-than-strictly-military bearing and all. But this is intense:
There really is a reason the gummint limited the bomber personnel to 25 (later 50) missions. There's also a reason why the grunts in the mud laughed at the idea of trading places with the bomber grunts, especially the belly turret grunts. Their mommas didn't raise no fools.
Goes live on Saturday!
5 days ago
2 comments:
The Air Force of today has many dedicated and brave people, no doubt about it; I've known and worked with many.
But it's not the Army Air Corps of World War II, not even close. That's due, in large part, to the difference in technology; smaller air crews are needed, but the ground crew hasn't changed all that much (if you include contractors, I mean).
Compare a B-17 with a a B-2 bomber, for example. Or a P-38 (which my dad flew, in North Africa and Sicily) with an F-16.
It's not that the risks are different; modern air crews are much much much better protected. They have much better chances of survival. An enormously wonderful idea, given the horrendus casualties the Army Air Corps took in WWII.
That said, the Air Force geeky warrior reputation has some basis in truth. But there's a solid reason as to why this is so; most of the Air Force operates at a different level than the other services. They have to, given the nature of their mission and equipment. They need quality infrastructure, for example, because their pilots fly hours long missions, and badly need their rest to be at peak performance.
Not that this doesn't cause problems; I watched the Army and the Air Force clash over living standards in Central Command. The Army, which nominally controls that region, was told to buzz off by the Air Force.
On the other hand, whilst in Kuwait, the mess hall of choice across Kuwait was in the Air Force camp at Ali Al Saleem Air Base. Back when, every Wednesday was "Surf 'n' Turf" day, and they brought out the metal silverware, so you could cut your steak without breaking half a dozen plastic knives.
And they had fresh milk, not the nuked brew sealed into cardboard boxes. Mmmmmmmm.....fresh milk!
With all that said.....I salute the bomber crews of WWII. As I said, my father was a P-38 pilot, and he escorted a lot of missions. His brother (my uncle) was a gunner in a B-17, and saw a fair amount of combat, before getting killed in a non-combat accident in England.
On the other hand, they didn't call 'em Flying Fortresses for nothing.
"There's also a reason why the grunts in the mud laughed at the idea of trading places with the bomber grunts, especially the belly turret grunts. Their mommas didn't raise no fools."
I've seen more than one interview with a B-17 crewman who told a story something along these lines:
Rifleman: What d'you do?
Gunner: I'm a bomber crewman.
R: Damn, you guys got a sweet life.
G: You wanna change places?
R (suspiciously): Waitaminute -- what position you in?
G: Ball turret gunner.
R: Go to hell!
There's a fair number of stories of B-17s and B-24s returning to base shot-up, with no landing gear and no hydraulics to retract the belly turret. If the turret gunner was alive before the landing, he generally wasn't afterwards. "The Greatest Generation" indeed!
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