Originally Posted by
XHooker
Not me. Willy Driscoll (the one from Duke Cunningham's F-4 who's not in prison) gave my NFWS class a talk about stress in combat. He showed us pictures of a 20ish WWI pilot and a 40ish WWI pilot who happened to be the same guy a few months later. In WWII some squadron's would kill so many guys in pre cruise carrier quals they'd be down to an 0-3 skipper. One of my roomates on the boat had an uncle who flew bombers for the AF in WWII. His training was so minimal he felt he was basically thrown into combat unprepared and never flew after the war. We truly stand on the shoulders of giants, but I wouldn't want to trade places with them.
Exactly.
There is an excellent series that shows on PBS from time to time: "A Fighter Pilot's Story." The protagonist was a P-47 pilot, and he chronicles his enthusiasm in joining, his training, and finally combat, both as Jug pilot, but also as a FAC during the Bulge.
He states, and I have read other accounts, that more people died in training than in combat....almost 2 to 1. Think about that.
He showed up in England about a week or two before D-Day. Nine months later, 75% of his squadron was dead. Robin Olds, in his book, gave similar percentages.
We owe them more than we can repay, and I respect them for what they did. It was incredibly dangerous. Single-battles in WWII killed more than we have lost in Iraq & Afghanistan since 1991.