What is just staggering, and awe-inspiring to me is that when we consider that the casualty rate for 8th AF and RAF Bomber command was 65%, and the KIA was above 25%, a 25 mission tour was a near-suicide assignment, yet they went up, and back up day after day.
He spoke about the casualties on his interview tapes... he kept repeating it to the interviewer... the death count when a squadron was taken out. He spoke about the crewman who had his leg and hip muscle splayed by flak and how he tried to give him first aid and then morphine. They parachuted the guy into Switzerland and he lived through it (they did something so his chute would open, I couldn’t understand it on the tape). May not have if our Pop had not have done what he could. Amazing that he could think while taking flak and the plane going down. I looked at the age Pop was at the time... He was born in June of 1925 and this happened in April 1944... He was just shy of turning 20.