Newsgroups: sci.military
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!att!cbnewsl!cbnewsm!cbnews!cbnews!military
From: gahooten@orion.arc.nasa.gov (Gregory A. Hooten)
Subject: Re: Memphis Belle + 25 Mission Crunch
Organization: NASA - Ames Research Center
Date: Tue, 30 Oct 90 05:14:58 GMT
Approved: military@att.att.com
Message-ID: <1990Oct30.051458.5792@cbnews.att.com>
References: <1990Oct24.144039.13195@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Lines: 29



From: gahooten@orion.arc.nasa.gov (Gregory A. Hooten)
I just finished Martin Caiden's book B17 Flying Fortress, and
he talked about the 25 mission crunch.  He says that there was
no limit on the number of missions that could be flown at the
start, but I don't know when the limit was implemented.  He
did say that on average the missions lost 10% of forces on
each mission until late in '44, and that anyone flying over 10
were flying on borrowed time.  

The book is most interesting if you have an incling of
interest in the B17.  There is one story of a waist gunner who
scored 7 kills on one mission.  It was contested, and over 200
people interviewed.  All the kills stand.  He killed only two
others confirmed on all other missions.  

One story of the whole inside of the bomber burning out, but
it still got back to England, and a true adventure of
skip-bombing, where they skip the BOMBER off the water not
once, but three times to get it back to atltitude enough to
fly to England.  

Well researched, many interviews, and much detail.  Good
reading.

Greg Hooten