Airport bars/pre-departure libations (within reason) are helpful…
That’s why it’s nice to have 2 of them!
I have evolved from a white-knuckle flyer into a person who enjoys flying now. I hope I never am on a flight like y’all are describing. Methinks the white knuckles will reappear.
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Still safer than driving I-35, Coach! 
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I think I’ve told this story before, but I’ll tell it again anyway. My dad was a bombardier/navigator on B17s in WWII, so as I understand it he sat in that plexiglass nose cone at the front of the plane. He vowed he’d never get in a plane again when he got out of the service. He did, once in the 80s, to get to California to see his grandson graduate from high school. Otherwise he stuck to his guns.
When he was very old, I sat with him the hospital and we talked about his army service. He said that when they landed, that sometimes all he could do was shut his eyes.
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My dad was a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne. He is afraid of flying. More specifically, he is terrified of landing. He says he’d rather you just hand him a parachute and shove him out the door. He at least has some control over that.
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Except I was at Love Field when I could have been drinking coffee and chatting with an old buddy.
I don’t mind my visits to Oklahoma. I get to see old friends and relatives. OKC isn’t nearly the shit hole now it was back when I would go there 35 years ago.
True. OKC has been transformed into something quite livable. They’ve put their sales tax revenues to good use.
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Mine too. Two tours in Vietnam. They saw some action.
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One of my dearest friends at my church in MD flew 55 (yes, that’s an odd number but there is a reason) missions out of Sicily to all over central and easter Europe. His stories are harrowing, especially over the oil refineries of Romania. He started as a co-pilot then graduated to pilot. He said he was shocked at the beating the bombers took (and the human cost as well) and often piloted tattered pieces of junk that had no right to still be airborne back to base. He was a true hero.
As to the 55 missions, pilots were obligated to fly 25 missions before being allowed to go back to the states. Sometimes, they would be called back to a second tour of 25. Knowing this, the Army Air Corps offered initial tours of 30 which guaranteed no second tour of 25. He did that and they called him back for a second tour anyways. And, he was never bitter. Chris was a wonderful man.
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Did he fly B-24’s? Those things were tanks with wings. I’ve read stories about the craziness of the Ploesti missions, and I can barely imagine anybody surviving those.
I once visited the Slovnoft refinery near Bratislava in Slovakia. It is an enormous complex that has been around for many years. There is a giant memorial in the main reception area commemorating the workers killed during WWII. The place is still covered in bomb craters from B-24 raids.
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He co-piloted B-24’s for most of his first tour and piloted B-17’s in his second. The B-17’s had longer range so they started to convert the B-24 pilots to 17’s as the axis forces retreated their manufacturing and production north.
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Growing up, Mike S and I had a family friend whose father in law led the raid on Ploesti. He did a video interview/recounting in the late ‘80s for our Dad who was a huge WWII buff. Somewhere I hope I have that VHS cassette of General Johnson’s interview in my late father’s stuff. It was an incredibly tremendous retelling- that mission was vital to putting a dent in the Axis’ petroleum production and the Allies paid a dear price.
I have a buddy from flight school whose Grandpa flew B-24s in Europe and I’m glad he felt comfortable telling us some of his stories towards the end of his life. I remember his telling us he basically had to submit to the idea they weren’t coming home and to just do his job so your buddies would come home. I sometimes marvel at what I’m privy to flying a 737 with all the bells and whistles, while these brave young men/kids had sheep skin suits to keep them warm, Germans slinging flak at them while dodging enemy fighters, all the while trying to keep a lumbering, hulking, bulky unforgiving bomber in formation with hundreds of others doing a bombing run over Europe. It boggles my mind.
The dude I just flew with flies a B-17 on the side for the Commemorative Air Force. I was picking his brain about flying the Flying Fortress and he said it’s quite the beast and unfortunately could be a death trap, too.
Those B-24s and B-17s could take a helluva beating and somehow still bring their crews home.
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Yeah,I can see that.
My late father lived there in the late '60s. He was in ‘enemy territory’ being a proud and vociferous UT alum and often told my brother Mike S and me growing up, “Boys, the worst 20 years of my life were the 2 years I had to live in OKC.”
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Later in the war, the crew had electrically heated suits that made the brutal temperatures a little more bearable.
B-17 official nickname was Flying Fortress. B-17 crew nickname was Flying Coffin.
Once an aircraft was fatally damaged and began to fall toward earth, the effects of gravity and centrifugal force sometimes made it impossible for the crew members to bail out.
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One of my ex-fiance’s father was a waist gunner on a B-17. He was shot down around there, and was a German POW for what was most of rest of the war, until one day the Germans just up and hauled ass from the POW camp, leaving the prisoners. He had some interesting stories.
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I bought a ride in one of their B-17s several years ago at an air show here in Hot Springs. I sure gained new appreciation for the crews because I don’t see how you could even fit 10 guys in that thing. Also, the ball turret gunner must have been a cat because nothing else could fit in that tiny ball.
I did get to sit in the bombardier’s seat for a while; I simulated a bombing run on all those tacky condos on Lake Hamilton.
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So true, Craig.
Those crews had about 1/2’’ of aluminum between them and the freezing elements, German flak and fighters and death. I’m forever amazed at their devotion to duty, courage, bravery and commitment knowing how bloody the Allies’ losses were in the air war over Europe.
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