4.5 stars.I’m glad I read this book. It was written by a flight engineer/gunner with the Eighth Air force in 1943, when American B-17 crews were taking horrendous losses and the chance of completing a 25-mission tour was slim. Later, long-range fighter escorts would arrive, and things would improve (and the number of missions required would go up), but in the summer and fall of 1943, multiple enemies—German fighters, flak, mechanical problems, and the weather—seemed to be winning. The men who flew the airplanes were just ordinary men (many of them were still boys), doing very hard things. Crews changed and shifted, but there was enough continuity, at least for Comer (the author), that I felt like I’d met him and some of his fellow crew members. There was the radio operator, who always seemed to think something was wrong with his oxygen. There was the navigator, who heard about another navigator’s injury and thereafter wore special gear to help prevent castration. And there was Comer’s original pilot, who got assigned the co-pilot’s position when they arrived in Europe. (view spoiler)[Eventually he was given a pilot’s position and a new crew, but they didn’t last very long. (hide spoiler)]
This is one of the best combat memoirs I've yet read. Comer was an aircraft mechanic stationed stateside with the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) in November 1942, when he volunteered for combat service as a flight engineer/gunner. After completing his training, Comer ended up in Britain in July 1943 with a B-17 bomber group in the 8th Air Force. He arrived at a time when U.S. bomber groups were experiencing high casualty rates from flying missions over German-occupied Europe. Each member of a bomber group was required to fly 25 missions before he would be eligible to return to the States, job well done. Comer conveys so tellingly the pressures encountered with each mission, the way weather affected operations, and the importance of teamwork among crews as a factor toward enhancing one's chances of survival --- and sanity --- as one edged ever closer towards the completion of 25 missions. (Thank you, A.L. for recommending this book.)
