Lot of noise being made about Purple Hearts

"BUFDRVR" wrote in message
...
ArtKramr wrote:

Casualtis are largley the resilt of statistical happenstance
and chaos theory.

Using that theory, there's no reason to train aircrew beyond the basics of
operating their machine. I mean, if its all "statisical happenstance" then
it
really doesn't matter who's good and who's not.


This is where the disconnect comes in I suspect.

For aircrew of Art's period where flak was the biggest killer
and there was bugger all you could to do about it
statistical happenstance was a biggie. A lot of very
experienced and competent aircrews were lost
attacking the target. Once the bombardier took
over the aircraft had to fly straight and level until
the bombs were gone. During that period the
worst crew in the world and the best crew in the
world have the same chances and this is probably
the most heavily defended piece of sky they'll
cross on the mission. I,ve spoken to a few WW2
aircrews and this was the part of the mission they
hated.

For the RAF on night operations it was in some ways worse,
they had to wait for the phtoflash to go off and get a picture
of the aiming point for BDA. If you didnt bring back
that picture the trip didnt count as a combat mission
towards the total for your trip.

Keith