Why US Air Corps Servicemen Were Allowed to Wear Such Badass Bomber Jackets in World War II

IO9 ^ | Dec 7, 2012 | George Dvorsky

[DogByte6RER]

A hand-embroidered blood chit has a Republic of China flag and a Chinese message promising a reward to anyone who helped the airman get back to Allied lines.

[Hammerhead]

Winn’s Warriors jacket rules!!!!

[Mr. Lucky]

‘cuz we knew how to win wars 70 years ago?

[DogByte6RER]

Related article ...

“WWII War Paint: How Bomber-Jacket Art Emboldened Our Boys”

http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/wwii-war-paint-how-bomber-jacket-art-emboldened-our-boys/

[Arm_Bears]

It was also a period when men were men, and that fact was appreciated by most.

[wideawake]

But it's not the same as losing a hundred B-17s in one raid, each one with 10 guys on it. That was happening day in, day out.

Not quite accurate.

The USAAF lost 46,000 men KIA in WWII.

That does not tally with a 1,000 men killed per bombing run.

[drewh]

[wideawake]

Also, the USAAF had about 4500 B-17s in service at peak WWII deployment (much lower than the article implies, but still an incredible number).

I am unaware of any raid that lost 100 B-17s in a single run.

[Sigurdrifta]

I believe the 334th Fighter Squadron’s fighting eagle was designed by Disney. The 334th was part of the Eagle Squadrons in Britain during WWII, along with the 335th and 336th.

My son flew with the 335th (Chiefs) during the Iraq War. If you go to the base of this wing at Seymour Johnson AFB in NC, a sign outside the base to this day says “Home of the Eagle Squadrons”.

When he went back to Afghanistan a few years later, he was in the 389th (T-Bolts).

[Age of Reason]

Aren’t “bomber jackets” the leather jackets with furry linings and big furry collars, and that the jackets in the photos above were, at the time, called something else?

[SatinDoll]

When I attended college in the early 1970s, one of my classmates was in her 60s.

Her first husband had been a bomber pilot in Europe, and survived the war only to die a few months later when his aircraft, flying over southern California, exploded in midair.

She heard the news over the radio. From that day forward her hair turned white.

[Jim from C-Town]

It was very normal that a 10% loss in aircraft happened often in many of the 1,000+ plane raids. The fact that 100 planes where lost in a raid is by no means a correlation of 1,000 deaths, many of those shot down lived and where able to parachute to if not safety, a long uncomfortable stay in an Axis prison camp.

[X-spurt]

Don’t think he said or meant “every” raid.....

[wideawake]

He said: "day in, day out" - which to me implies a constant baseline.

[drewh]

[Eric in the Ozarks]

My dad kept a cigarette pack of playing card sized blood chits in his pocket when he flew C-46s over the Hump in the China-Burma-India Campaign. He was a civilian pilot who wore an AAF uniform with the CBI patch but no insignia of rank. He was referred to as “captain.”

The CBI, he said, was the “bump on the butt” of the Allied war effort. They took him in the service because he had flying experience with CNAC but was actually too old to step forward.
He never needed the chits but I still have the CBI patches from one of his uniforms.

[Jim from C-Town]

Prior to the introduction of the P-51 fighter escort, the losses where astronomical in the bombing raids. They averaged over 10% regularly.

[Billthedrill]

I am unaware of any raid that lost 100 B-17s in a single run.

Correct you are. We lost 60 at Schweinfurt. 50 B-24s at Ploesti.

[rlmorel]

Black Thursday over Schweinfurt in August 1943.

60 bombers, 3 P-47s, and 2 Spitfires lost, with 58-95 bombers heavily damaged

No matter how you cut it, those guys could paint anything they wanted to on the back of their jackets and I would still tip my hat to them.

[cll]

We call the A-2s “Flight Jackets”.