Also to help set the scene and get ya in a May 1943 kinda mood
From Brian O’Neill’s book “Half a Wing, Three Engines and A Prayer” about the Bob Hullar crew flying B17s with the 303rd BG starting in mid 1943.
This excerpt from the book seems to capture the moment the adventure/game became something much more dangerous during the crew’s first mission.
“As we crossed the enemy coast our escorting Spitfires turned back for their English bases and the Germans introduced us, very informally, to their heavy anti-aircraft defenses. The billowing black clouds of smoke, which was all we saw of the defenses, looked perfectly harmless. As they boiled up throughout the formation it was hard to realize they had centers of steel and were scattering fragments of sudden death all around us.
As we went deeper into enemy territory, the interphone gurgled with excitement. Everyone on the ship was eager to get a crack at the German fighter planes which the briefing officer had promised we would meet. Sgt. Rice in the top turret saw them first: ‘Six fighters at three o’clock’ came over the interphone. ‘They are moving around towards the nose.’ Someone else added, and by then, I’m sure, every eye in our ship was watching them as they climbed a little above our level and continued around towards the front of the formation.
‘Bandit at one o’clock!’ the bombardier blurted out, and simultaneously, the 50-caliber machine guns in the nose, the top and the ball turrets began to chatter and tracers began to snake their way toward the attacking fighters from every ship in the formation.
What combat really meant now struck Huller’s crew in radically different ways. Bud Klint saw the fighters ‘come in trail with an interval of 300-400 yards between them. Even when the leading edges of those FW-190s began to light up like neon signs, I was far more interested then frightened. But when a string of little white puffs appeared across the right wing of our plane about ten feet from the cockpit, and I recognized them as bursting 20mm shells, the Focke-Wulfs lost most of their fascination for me as I began to realize the air around us was filled with flying lead”
The Huller crew.
