It was a large
curved glass about six feet across at table top level with a map of
England and Europe on the glass. The room in which it was placed was
dark and there was a light under the glass. The planes returning from
a mission were little blips on the glass. A couple of the blips were
over the ocean way south of England and they were trying to contact
them by radio to reorient them. they were far off course and expected
to run out of fuel over the Atlantic. I imagine there were more than
a few who ended up missing England due to wind changes or bad weather
during the war.
When we did use our radio we had a code for each mission and the four
flights of each squadron were: red, blue, green, etc. We used these
codes when talking to each other so we knew who we were talking to
without using any given names. We looked forward to short missions to
France or Belgium and these were called "milk runs". The long
missions with flak and enemy fighters were the ones we dreaded. I
should mention that we had a certain amount of fear on these
missions. It has been said that anyone who doesn't experience fear in
combat is lying. It affected some more than others, however, and we
were constantly being observed by our doctor for any signs of battle
fatigue. The strain would begin to tell after you had flown a lot of
missions.
When we began to lose friends, I guess one just developed an attitude
that it wasn't going to happen to you.
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