Tail Gunner

It's an interesting conundrum. You're taking this ride in an aircraft that is a major piece of aviation, slash military history. It makes you grin the grin that almost has the back of your head falling off.

But, then you think about the fact that almost forty-eight hundred (4,800) of these planes were lost in combat. A minimum flight crew was nine, a maximum of twelve. Then you do the math.

That's a somber thought. Approximately fifty thousand lives lost, just based on the number of aircraft lost. Not even taking into consideration the two and three, and four or five and six or more crew members lost during a bombing mission where-in the plane was actually brought home, but badly damaged.

I was talking to a guy at the Smyrna Airport that fueled the B-17's in Europe back in the day. He said, "If I was assigned the tail-gunner seat, or the ball turret, I'd have been A.W.O.L".