What a B-17 Pilot told me one afternoon

...he trudged in off the desert floor into the museum, hot and dusty, his 50 mission crush cap worn from years of use, but, out of the closet, he put it on for his visit to the B-17 Museum.
   "I was 19 when I did my first of 28 missions, " he told me. Out of England, called East Anglia at the time, he was part of the 8th Air Force that bombed the German Reich back into the stone ages in 1944 and 45.
   " Gosh," he said, " it was awful." At 89, still using 'gosh,' I thought, what a character - 28 missions stacked with blood, gunfire, explosions, flak and death, this guy, at his age, still says, GOSH like a Montana farm boy, but still standing straight with a boyish smile on his face, he had no regrets.
   "I flew in the middle of the pack, " he added, " in the left seat (command pilot) and most of the 8 hours in the air, I got a severe case of eye strain and vertigo."
   He had to keep his eye on the airplane 70 feet above him right under his nose, in those days, it was "put your wing in my window," they flew so close, so tight, they often bumped into each other. The idea was with 12 machine guns pointed in every direction, the enemy wouldn't dare make a direct attack on the flock of B-17's - too many machine guns.
   "About 30% of the time, the ME 109's killed the pilot and co-pilot in a head on run, shooting right at us. Thank God, they never hit me, " he said. In those cases, the top turret gunner came down and flew the mission, he was the third pilot on board. "Lucky thing," my visiting pilot buddy added, " my top turret was crappy at landing."
   In 28 missions, my B-17 pilot visitor of the day, flew 16 different  B-17s, most crashed and burned on return to their bases in East Anglia. One, the "Dorothy Dee," was so shot up, when he landed at Jimmy Stewart's base (the actor who was sound asleep at the time), he said he could swear the crew was whistling they were so happy to have made it.
   When he left the plane, the ground crew chief told him to turn around and check out his 17. When he did, his jaw dropped. It took him a half hour to count OVER 700 bullet holes. The miracle was not one of the 10 man crew was even scratched.
   The crew wasn't whistling,...the airplane was. The scraped the plane and the boys were bused back to their own base.
   None of the 10 crewmen were over 20.
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From the Museum Floor, Guests Tell me of their lives

As a docent in an aviation Museum here in Tucson, Arizona, I have the honor of meeting many people from around the world who visit the desert of southern Arizona. While here, they visit an aviation museum dedicated to a unique World War II bomber flown by the American Army Air Force in Europe during that war.
    As a docent, a guide, I have the chance to speak with folks from around the world. I exchange points of view, conversation about their lives, mine, a mutual exchange of our cultures, economics, politics, their unique curiosities about Americans, and what it's like to live here.
    Almost to a visitor, they are intensely curious about us. Almost to a visitor they are happy to be here, pleasant, and enormously happy with their decision to visit America. Their intense curiosity with the War, the bomber, and how Americans think and feel is astounding. They can't get enough of it.
    Last Saturday, two Syrian couples helped close the shop with me. They were about mid thirties, two husband and wives, very pleasant, highly fluent in English and both about to move to the US. They will move here because of America's dedication to "family values." Although, they say, we have moved away from it the last decade or two, with the coming election they feel the possibility of a Republican president and more modest, conservative values in the country's mainstream may restore the richness that our country had under Reagan.
   This from two mid-30's Syrian couples who are moving here on the CHANCE that we may politically move to the right. In their own country, they admitted, after some pressing, that of course, Assad had to go. We spoke briefly about my exposure to Egyptians who had frequented the Museum briefly six months ago, right after the outbreak of the Cairo riots. They had said after Mubarak had fallen, the same henchmen were still in power. The Syrian couples agreed, " nothing has changed there, " they added. Then they agreed that in Syria, the whole organization would have to topple, not just Assad, else nothing would change. " It would be just like Egypt, and it would be chaos," they said.
   When I explained the rich fabric of my pool of international exposure inside the museum and how alike we all are, they readily agreed that the world is now - in their words a "global village." Jobs, a bad economy, lack of family values, pornography, violence, etc, plagues their homeland, Europe, and other places as well as ours. It was NOT a surprise to them the things I discussed, at all.
   The globe is shrinking. They were more cosmopolitan than I thought. More later.
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