Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire New Documentary on the 8th Air Force...

Wow

Dude... There's something seriously wrong with you...

If the rain lets up this afternoon (and if not, tomorrow) I will visit my Uncle Jim's grave and place a flag there, as I do every Memorial Day. He was KIA on his 28th bombing mission with the 34th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force, on 01/20/1945. He was not a "terrorist". May the sacrifices of those brave men never be forgotten.

My dad flew a thunderbolt in WW2.

He was stationed in England got shot down i germany taken prisoner and escaped. He said his first missions were bomber support. His plane had " Easys Angels" painted on the tail. His issued plane was so shot up, he told my brother he was flying a different one when he got shot down. It had Maj Mac painted on the fuselage. I found a picture of that plane on the internet. It's a pretty cool deal to see the plane my dad got shot down flying. I would suppose he flew for the eight?

Our fighter/bomber close support was absolutely fantastic. Very brave men...American fighter pilots were the most underrated of the war. Everyone talks about the luftwaffa and the RAF but for my money we were the best in the air over Europe.

The Germans lived in absolute fear of the Jabos.

Sounds like your father was a hell of a guy...would have loved to know him.

My Dads father was an Army officer and was killed in 44. My grandmother was also in the army and served with the occupation force until 54. My dad basically grew up in post war Germany. She remarried stateside to the man I called Grandpa...he was an officer in the 8th. Great man...was shot down twice and crashed twice due to mechanical failure. All incidents had fatalities. I remember going to an air museum with him and going inside a B17...we spent the afternoon going through the plane with him telling me stories...incredible day I’ll never forget.

He never flew again once he left the service

Our airmen were not terrorists for the fifth time...but they were used as a force of terror. If you don’t think the intentional murder of Christian women and children while they slept in their beds is terror...well let’s just say we disagree about the definition.

After the 8th got enough P-51s, the P-47s were mostly shifted to the 9th AF, who did ground support work against airfields, trains, troops, tanks, convoys, etc. I think the 8th kept ONE P-47 group, who didn't want to give up their T-bolts.
To find out which AF your father flew for, it would mostly depend on timing. I think the 8th AF was all P-51 by late '44, excepting the 56thFG, who wanted to keep their -47s. If you can find out which Fighter Group he flew for, the rest of the data is easy enough to find out.

Well I guess he must have snapped out of it, because he cut the rug out from under him at Yalta, not to mention Churchill's push to drive into Germany to take Berlin with Patton and Montgomery instead, FDR wanted the Russians to take it...

Yes. In fact some of the Manhattan Project scientists who were perfectly OK with dropping it on Germany didn't think we should have dropped it on Japan after Germany surrendered, Germany being worse bad guys in their opinion.

He must have gone to the ninth because the gun camera film was engaging ground targets.

He said the mustangs took over the bomber support.

I served as a tanker in Germany during the time Ronald Reagan was commander in chief. I was fortunate that such a strong commander in chief there was very little conflict.

As I look at it war is hell. Unless you were there you might best consider keeping your gob shut about what went on.

I am proud of my dad and also proud of my own service. Like my dad always would say

Enuff said.

Thanks rat smaker for the info. I guess the Maj Mac plane has its own video game, I can look it up there.

Oh, is that the difference? The Japanese were not Christians? So it was okay to turn them to dust and cinder, but not the patrons of Nazi Germany?

The fact is, we are all humans down here on this little blue marble, regardless the mythos of choice.

Last Fourth of July I stayed at a friends house in clouqet Minnesota. She had life magazines from WW2. One article was how to tell a chinamen from a jap. The magazines words .....not mine.

I wish I knew how to post smaller photos. I think it was a different world back then.

My Father In Law, who just passed away this past Nov at the age of 98, was a radio operator/gunner in a B-17 for the 401st BG out of Deenthorpe. He completed 35 missions. How lucky was he? We took him to the Mighty 8th Museum in GA several times (he lived in Bluffton SC for the last 7 years of his life). Once he was looking at the model of his base that they have on display and a young English man approached us and he asked my FIL if he served there. This young Brit was from that area and shook his hand and thanked him. Another time we went when a group of young students were at the museum and my FIL walked by with his WWII 401 BG hat and was spontaneously applauded. My FIL once said to me, "On just about every mission we lost 10-20% of our planes, I flew 35 missions. How lucky was I? You do the math." His original crew that he trained with took flak over Germany and had to land in Switzerland. They were interned for the duration and one of his crewman was chosen to star in a movie made during the war called "The Last Chance". My FIL was sidelined for that mission with a cold. He used to say, "If I hadn't been sick, I might have been a movie star." He certainly had movie star good looks. After losing his crew, he was assigned to different crews needing a replacement. He was often in the lead plane with the mission commander. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

While the 8th didn't achieve their goal of strategic bombing bringing the Luftwaffe to it's knees, (there were actually more German fighter planes at the end of the war than at the start), they did help shorten/win the war. The German petroleum shortage that impacted the Battle of the Bulge was due to the bombing of refineries and fuel depots. What defeated the Luftwaffe were the loss of their experienced fighter pilots to Allied fighters. While our fighter pilots could safely train in the States, the new German pilots had to try to train in a war zone. They didn't last long. The Germans had fighters but few experienced pilots to fly them.

Thanks to the OP (Idaho Shooter) for telling us about this Nat Geo program. It makes me think of my late neighbor and friend, Major Jim Sparks, who was a 20 year old B-17 pilot over Germany. He told me that his favorite escort was a B-24, as the Luftwaffe fighter pilots went after them first, being easier to shoot down. He went on to fly in the Berlin Airlift and later worked for Jimmy Doolittle.

cooper: read this: https://www.historynet.com/pow-hell-switzerland.htm to see how close your Father In Law came to hell on earth. The Swiss collusion with the Nazis explains why Switzerland was virtually unscathed in WW II. Being the Third Reich's banker had it's benefits.

Interesting story, and disturbing. There are many little known events that lie buried in the mainstream of history.

Paul

Twer'nt me. 'Twas Greygohst.

I don't know how they got in the planes with balls as big as they had.

Toward the end of his life, my FIL had dementia. He sometimes found himself back in time, in England. He once told us, "I've got to get to bed early, I've got a mission in the morning. I don't know why? I've flown my 35 missions." When we told him that the war was over, he replied with a "It is? Who won?"