I remember reading that the 8th lost more men than the US Marines lost in the pacific. Is that true?
63tb
8th Air Force Combat Losses in Europe was heavy. Crews had a higher percentage of being killed, wounded or captured while flying in the 8th AF than if they were in the infantry in the front line. Like all statistics, this fact is high when you compare the 8th AF losses against all personnel in the units that were considered "in combat." In actuality, it was even higher if you only count the front line regiment combat personnel and not the whole division. A US division was 16,000 or so personnel with only 3,600 being the front line infantry combat troops - all the others were support personnel.
The 8th AF suffered more than 42,000 casualties out of which over 26,000 were killed. The 8th AF casualties amounted to half of all USAAF casualties in World War II. This doesn't take into account the casualties suffered by the 9th, 11th, and 15th Air Forces. Also to put the number of casualties in more of a perspective, 135,000 men flew combat missions in the 8th AF during the war.
As wounded Staff Sgt. John Hill was helped from his B-17 bomber after a raid on Jan. 13, 1943, the commander of the 305th Bomb Group, Col. Curtis LeMay came up and said:
"Don't worry, that bullet didn't have your name on it."
"No," replied Hill, "but it had 'To whom it may concern' on it."
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
-- Randall Jarrell
ack-ack