by | September 30, 2013 · 4:42 pm
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If you were in the 8th or 15th AAF and shot up over Germany…..

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– one of your options was to keep flying east – this was a chit if you made it to the Russian lines in East Europe

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3 responses to “If you were in the 8th or 15th AAF and shot up over Germany…..”

  1. Don Burch
    September 30, 2013 at 8:26 pm

    Art,

    My Team Lead/Branch Chief at NASA brought in some very special items from his dad’s WWII service. His dad served with the 8th AF as a navigator on a B17…Bashful Bessie. I have held his mission nav charts and a bomb safety tag from each mission with mission info noted on each. I held history in my hands and it was as if it were handed to me by the ghosts of all those lost over Europe during the bombing campaigns.

    Reply
  2. Bill Brandt
    September 30, 2013 at 11:40 pm

    Don – I just finished watching 12 O’Clock High – again. Amazing movie and for “entertainment” amazing that they did so much research – such as – the failure of a navigator/navigators to get to the rendezvous at the right time – how it cost lives. Meaning a flight of much fewer bombers over the target making it easier for the fighters to pick them off.

    And something I had forgotten – from 1942-1944 these were the only guys taking the fight to the Nazis in Europe.

    By the time this chit came out – it was probably 1944 and you could make the Russian lines.

    Then some crash landed in Sweden to sit out the war…

    Reply
  3. Snake Eater
    October 1, 2013 at 5:48 am

    This sobering nugget from Wikki…The 8th AF alone suffered 26,000 KIA over Europe in WWII.To give this some perspective…total USMC KIA/MIA in the Pacific was 24,511…the Greatest Generation …indeed. Best

    PS. Crash landing in Sweden could have its upside…you just had the survive the crash

    Reply

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