My father served in the USAAF (earlier the US Army Air Corps) for the period of 1940-49. He eventually did serve in heavy bombing, as radioman and navigator (and occasional top turret gunner), in B-17s flying with the 15th Air Force from North Africa after Operation Torch, in the early stages of the invasion of Sicily and mainland Italy (late 1942 to spring 1943).
After being wounded, he was sent back to the Caribbean for antisubmarine work. He made it to 18 missions out of a tour of 25 (which few airmen actually ever reached). In 1943 and 1944, he helped with the testing of the B-29 in the Caribbean, a monster of a plane in that era with science-fiction luxuries like a shirt-sleeve cabin (no oxygen masks) and autopilot and auto-direction of defensive machine guns using radar and analog computers. It's still astonishing the technical progress from 1939 to 1945 in so many areas. Late in the war, in the Caribbean, duty featured some party time, with the B-17 bomb bays filled with cases of liquor, not munitions. But the accident rate was high in that era, and everyone was always on edge, even during a low-key flight.
Somewhere I still have part of my father's uniform. An amazing era.
My father served in the USAAF (earlier the US Army Air Corps) for the period of 1940-49. He eventually did serve in heavy bombing, as radioman and navigator (and occasional top turret gunner), in B-17s flying with the 15th Air Force from North Africa after Operation Torch, in the early stages of the invasion of Sicily and mainland Italy (late 1942 to spring 1943).
After being wounded, he was sent back to the Caribbean for antisubmarine work. He made it to 18 missions out of a tour of 25 (which few airmen actually ever reached). In 1943 and 1944, he helped with the testing of the B-29 in the Caribbean, a monster of a plane in that era with science-fiction luxuries like a shirt-sleeve cabin (no oxygen masks) and autopilot and auto-direction of defensive machine guns using radar and analog computers. It's still astonishing the technical progress from 1939 to 1945 in so many areas. Late in the war, in the Caribbean, duty featured some party time, with the B-17 bomb bays filled with cases of liquor, not munitions. But the accident rate was high in that era, and everyone was always on edge, even during a low-key flight.
Somewhere I still have part of my father's uniform. An amazing era.