Most famous Boeing of all is probably the B-17 Flying Fortress four-engine bomber. The later, heavier B-29 Superfortress was assigned specifically for use in the Pacific Theater. The B-17 and the Consolidated B-24 were the bomber workhorses of the European Theater. My father-in-law flew more than twenty missions over Germany in a B-17. He said the B-17 was a tough old bird, but it was hard to sit there, taking everything the fighter planes and flak could dish out, and keep flying straight towards the bombing run. He had a couple of co-pilots killed right next to him, and he was wounded and burned.
Those guys had giant titanium balls between their legs.
The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. ~ D.H. Lawrence |
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