Joseph Heller, a much vaunted author of "Catch 22" wrote the sometimes critcized anti-war novel mentioned back 30 or so years ago during the Vietnam days. It was the story of bomber squadrons of the 15th USAAF stationed in Italy with missions flying into German targets in Europe and I believe Ploesti oilfields.
The latter was the most significant as Ploesti was the life blood of the Nazi war machine. Choke off the German oil, you kill their tanks, motorcycles and jeeps. The 15th had that job, and with a horrendous casualty rate, they did it.
Each mission cost them roughly 20% of their squadron (x 10 men per B-17). So, they figured, after 5 missions, you were 100% dead, as the story goes.
The Catch-22 movie was a nut-ball of a story, drew crazy reviews had crew members hiding in palm trees, dumping bombs in the ocean, shooting up fishing boats, generals issuing orders while sittijng on toilets, flying officers in formation, naked, crazy stuff, start to finish.
While I was a docent at a local B-17 Museum here in Tucson, I had the pleasure of interviewing a pilot fro the 15th Air Force who wondered into the museum. Much to the consternation of the Director of our Museum, I spent a lot of time with visitors and sucked as much out this guy as I could. He came in his old flight jacked and 50 mission crush cap.
The Gist of it was, " everything I saw in Catch 22, was true, " he told me. " I was there, I lived it, I saw it. We were drunk half the time. We had no idea who would be killed, who would survive, it's a wonder any of us got back."
And, he had the black and white pictures to prove it.
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