Real Estate Agent with MOOERS REALTY ME Broker License 106759
The weather report before the sun comes up in Italy is favorable and a B-24 squadron of Liberators, bomber aircraft during World War Two will be taking to the skies over Germany.
Targets discussed during the pre-dawn morning briefing. My dad one of the flight crew on a B-24, part of the 15th Army Air Force division, the 882 Bombardment squadron. Dad was a shoe in to be a tail gunner with his skinny stature even though he intially wanted to fly the four engine bomber over enenmy lines as his contribution to the war effort. An all out, maximum effort the entire country, world was behind.
Daylight bombing was very effective but half the planes got lost during part of the war until ways were developed to jam, foil the highly effective German 88 anti air craft guns.
Once those guns zeroed in, dialed in your altitude, that tight formation of planes thinned out real fast.
Dad in the back of the B-24, a tail gunner with an electric flight suit, an air mask where the part of your face it did not cover got frost bite in an unheated, unpressurized cabin. Wrote more about the World War Two "day job" my dad had in a B-24 called Sagitarius. Long before I was born over the skies of Europe, defending freedom along with the rest of the country on the ground, in the water, overhead in the air. Honor those loved ones, neighbors, town and city folks in your area gone, maimed, serving now in the service. "Many gave some, some gave all" is a sobering reflection of the cost of freedom we enjoy, can easily forget, not appreciate fully.This is what it looked like in a B-17, the earlier bomber produced before the B-24, from the ball turret position. The one postion in the fight crew my dad said was the most dangerous of the young group of aviators, even though the tail was a lonely, exposed place to be too.
Northern Maine Real Estate-Aroostook County Broker
Amen Jim. The tunes in this one, Arty Shaw, Glen Miller start to make you think of particular wars, ones you can relate to because a loved one served, made it home safe. Many came home in boxes, flag drapped caskets and the families that lost those soldiers, airman, navy service enlisted, officers deserve the utmost respect, honor, glory. Especially the MIA's, the wheel chair saddled armless, legless and missing more parts than they went in to war with.
Northern Maine Real Estate-Aroostook County Broker
I want to fly in the back of a B-24..squeezed in, two 50 caliber guns pointed out the back of the plane and to think about what rolled thru my dad's mind as he took off, went over a target, heard bells ringing and on one mission where they had a forced landing and the British picked them up three days later to get the intact crew back in the air on a new plane will less holes in it, where all four engines twirled properly.
Targets discussed during the pre-dawn morning briefing. My dad one of the flight crew on a B-24, part of the 15th Army Air Force division, the 882 Bombardment squadron. Dad was a shoe in to be a tail gunner with his skinny stature even though he intially wanted to fly the four engine bomber over enenmy lines as his contribution to the war effort. An all out, maximum effort the entire country, world was behind.
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