I spent twenty years flying in the Navy during peace time and it still is hard to fathom what our predecessors went through. A riviting read.
Tim
 

Wow.
 

Wow.
 

What do you say to that. My father served on Tinian. Never said much.
ozaoB
 

Wow!
 

Wow-that was fantastic Rog-my dad was a belly gunner and was the sole survivor in 2 training mission crashes here in the states-never made it overseas, screwed up his back for life and lost all of his teeth-but fathered old MM
MM
 

That's Linda's post, and I agree.
 

This was his 5th mission, the ball bearing factory in Schweinfurt.

The mission that he said "How we got back from this one, I still don't know." (ref. Oct. 14 entry).

"It was known as "Black Thursday" because of the worst USAAF losses to that date: 77 bombers and about 650 crewmembers."
 

[...] Flight log from a B-17F in 1943 / 44 [...]

What an experience!
 

Thank you Roger, for posting this link. I lost a Great Uncle who was a B-24 Navigator in that war. Wish I had gotten to meet him.

Corsair, The Mostly Harmless
 

I'll say you're welcome Corsair, because I posted the link, but you can thank Rodger too, because he gave me the keys to the blog.
 

Wow. You don't see something that firsthand very often. As if flak and fighters weren't bad enough, just bad luck and weather took their toll too.
My late father-in-law went on that Schweinfurt mission as a waist gunner. Late in his life he told some stories much like that diary:
Slipping on the blood of the other gunner, facial frostbite around the edges of his oxygen mask, shrapnel from the flak sounding like tire chains thrown into a galvanized bucket when it struck the aircraft skin, FW-190's in a head-on attack streaking thru the fornmation so quickly all he could do was fire a blip and hope the fighter flew through it, the numb feeling of watching another B-17 spin and tumble lazily downward and the agonizing counting of chutes, the fright of forming up in clouds and fog, avoiding a midair collison because he saw the exhaust flames of the bomber above them in the mist just fifteen feet above his waist gun window, flak so thick you thought you could get out and walk on it, a crew member lying on his bunk in the Nissen hut, playing with his pistol while the others played poker; he fired a round through the roof, and just grinned at the rest of the crew when the MP's took him away, a cannon shell coming thru the nose bubble decapitating the copilot, and an emergency landing that broke his back, putting him out of the war.
My godfather went on 55 of those missions as a B-24 pilot. My dad wrote him and begged him to come home, as he had done his part. Don said he had to train the "young guys coming over who don't even know how to transfer fuel". He was killed on his 55th mission on 15 April, 1945 over Bologna, Italy. Young guys. He was just 21 years old when he died.
Lt. Col. Gen. Tailgunner dick
 

Sorry, Linda. I should have read more closley!

Corsair, The Mostly Harmless
 

Making of a movie script Tailgunner Dick - 10!
 

Adventure: Someone else in grave danger far away.
 

Nothing to be sorry for Corsair!

and Chuck... too true!
 

Cannot thank you LindaSoG or Rodger enough for this post!

Tailgunner, beautiful writing in tell of those accounts! Very good read.

God Bless us, one and all.
Juice
 

Great story tailgunner
MM