Yes, they had 50/50 odds of getting blown the hell up. Maybe more. But they're also swinging at parties and having a gay old life. They're not in the trenches being bombed to pieces and literally rotting from the inside out. It's very interesting to see this side of the war. They were saving necks but also eating hot meals and banging hot broads. Maybe justly so considering what they brought to the table.
shareWell, maybe sometimes. My uncle was on the crew of a USAAF B-17 during WWII, in North Africa and Italy. They lived in makeshift temporary camps, sleeping on cots in canvas tents, eating canned rations. Not exactly in the trenches, but not swinging at parties and having a gay old life, either. And they did get shelled and bombed occasionally, in addition to being shot at by German AA and fighters while they were in the air.
shareok. i didn't know that. i guess some of them had it better than others.
shareThose based in England had it easier than others, who might have transitional camps. But as they noted here, it was more about trying to escape the mental anguish of being in mortal danger day after day.
If any pilots had it easy, might have been the American bomber crews in the Pacific, later in the war, after Japan had lost any semblance of air power.
"Easy" is probably a stretch, even in the late-Pacific war context.
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Now you know it too. π«β βΊ
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/66/ad/a5/66ada5d11aeea6a50dfb3e920534ef5a.jpg
are you fucking stupid?
ever heard of Anti Air Cannons?
You mean the "fucking stupid" Flak.
Did you read the OP or leastwise its first sentence?
"Yes, they had 50/50 odds of getting blown the hell up." π©οΈβπ₯β
you fucking retarded monkeys compare operating a wooden stick to being a pilot. just lol at your stupidity.
only the bests of the bests can be pilots. however. every retard can be a foot soldier. its not about whats fair morons
Here's a thought, what if you dropped this embarrassing act and interacted like a normal person?
I'm sure you're a decent guy underneath this weird internet personality you've developed.
A wooden stick? What are you talking about? Quarter staffs? Spears? The conversation was about WWII, not medieval times.
shareSeems like serving as ground crew or other air support staff would have been a much better way to go through the war than as air crew. You got the hot meals and the broads, but you only had to worry if your airfield was bombed, which for the Allies was probably rare.
shareOne of Hitler's big mistakes was moving to bomb English cities and population centers rather than airfields.
shareYeah, the infantry had a harder time day to day, in terms of hardship. And as a former 11B infantry NCO, I know about living out of a rucksack, eating T rations and MRE's (would have been K rations in WWII), not being able to shower for a month at a time, always being too hot, or too cold, tired, wet, hungry, dirty, etc. And marching twenty-five miles with a 60lb rucksack.
Yeah, the airmen had day to day life a lot easier. But in the early part of the air war at least, they had a much higher chance of being killed. They had to cap the missions at 25 for morale reasons, because any more than that it it was more likely than not you'd end up dead. Infantrymen significantly better chances than that. The U.S. army air force had the worst loss rate of all U.S. forces in the war. Unlike other arms, they also had a higher number of killed than wounded -- probably because if you got hit as an infantryman, there was usually a medic nearby, and you could quickly be evacuated to a field hospital if it was bad. By contrast, if you were badly wounded in a bomber over Germany, there was no help other than basic first aid for hours, not until your plane landed -- if it landed. I'm sure a lot of severely wounded flyers, with treatable wounds, simply expired before they could ever get to a doctor.
So I wouldn't begrudge the flyboys their clean sheets and hot meals. If they paid less in sweat, they paid a lot more in blood.
Interesting post.
Good on you, as an infantry commander, keeping it real for your aerial brothers.
I'm not sure it was a gay, old life on those dreary Brit Air Bases. Maybe in this series it is lol. I served in the Air Force over 24 years and when I was young I read a lot about WWII flyboys, Chuck Yeager is one of my hero's. At age 17 the Air Force became my life. Once I joined I wanted to get out of Missouri and yep, my first assignment was a small nuclear missile base in Missouri. We were out in the country, if you lived off base you lived in nasty trailers because just not enough regular houses to go around. Back on base was extremely boring, living in cockroach infested barracks and a roommate you didn't like. Our Wing commander was a real piece, he'd drive his staff car around at dusk and berate young Airmen if they didn't see his car and salute. Thankfully I got an assignment overseas and even though it was Turkey it was a blast compared to Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri. Then I stayed mostly overseas for the next 21 years.
Back to the WWII Airmen. Living in cold Quonset huts but at least getting hot meals. Guess who loaded up the tons of ammo on their B-17's/B-24's? It wasn't the pilots but the rest of the aircrew spent all day loading up their plane, and then they were dead within a couple of weeks..or maybe if they were lucky..captured POW's. Going to London could easily lead to the losing side of a brainless brawl..by either jealous Brits or more likely U.S. military drunks. 1943 was a complete disaster. High Command wouldn't assign any fighter escorts to the bombers and they were slaughtered. It was common for Generals to at least tell their disgruntled pilots "you're already dead". In other words, suck it up and fly your doomed mission flyboy. But those crews stuck together, they were family. One ball turret gunner somehow strapped his chute to him in the turret. His plane got flacked, his buddy got him out of the turret, nobody else was wearing their chutes except the ball turret gunner and his buddy pushed him out, he lived but his buddy died.
Unlike the Japanese, the Germans gave preferential treatment to allied officers in their pow camps. When the Army Air Force figured this out they started bumping every bomber crew member up to sergeant at the minimum, at some point in the war. So yeah, they even had it better when captured, if they made it to the ground alive.
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