So, How Long Does It Take To Complete 25 Missions?
Michael Giacchino is the Mozart, Beethoven and Bach of our generation
Could be done in a month, though unlikely as the guy would have been dead--the average life expectancy of bomber crewmen was measure in minutes--or a blithering idiot because of the stress of combat flying every day. Missions could be scrubbed for a number of reasons: bad weather, mechanical problems, change in mission or, sometimes, for morale reasons or even illness. So twenty-five missions usually took months--if the crewman lived that long.
share"the average life expectancy of bomber crewmen was measure in minutes" - utter nonsense. The truth is sobering enough without making a travesty of it. Losses were heavily dependent on what phase of the war, and what theater, we are talking about. 1943 in Europe, without any fighter escorts, was brutal. At one point, it was estimated that 1/3 of all B-17 crewmen would not survive the war. Airplane loss rates per mission frequently rose above the 3-5% that was considered the maximum allowable AVERAGE, and there were instances of over 10%, including isolated instances well over.
By 1944, with the availability of P-51 escort fighters, the losses were much lower, and by 1945 it was an unlucky B-17 crewman who bought it.
The AAF's peak strength was 2.4 million, and of that about 40,000 airmen were killed in all aircraft types in all theaters in 3-1/2 years of combat. 15,000 were killed in aircraft ACCIDENTS within US borders!
Of 12,400 B-17s produced, 3500 were lost in Europe, but that also means 8900 were NOT.
*throws hands in the air in exasperation*
Well... there you go bringing FACTS into the equation!
Operation Chastise (the Dam Buster's Raid) was particularly high on the casualty rate, and 'only' 50% of the aircraft bought it. Now, I don't say 'only' because I think that a small number, but like you said, "the average life expectancy of bomber crewmen was measure in minutes" is utter tripe. The truth is bad enough.
SpiltPersonality