11/18/2023 0 Comments B 29 cockpit millennium falconThe host rightfully said that we owe a lot to those young men, and I can’t disagree. The quarters are tight, the level of danger astronomically high, and the chances of survival ludicrously low. The host and I discussed the guts it would take for a young man, or any man, to work a bomber crew. (By the way, the topic of war and who pays the price has never been covered more artistically than it was in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, a literary classic involving bombers if there ever was one.) As a team member aboard this Boeing B-29 Superfortress named “FIFI” told me, “You’re an old man compared to the kids who manned this plane.” He’s right, of course. And it definitely ignores the fact that the kids who boarded these planes were total badasses, full stop. My dad and I both contemplated the fact that these heroic machines were built to kill and destroy, but that fact ignores the myriad complexities of world politics and man’s incessant need for territorial domination. It’s a shame, however, that man’s greatest achievements often correspond with man’s ugliest impulses. In doing so, I was reminded that the title of Clinton Portis’s revisionist western does not apply to me at all, but is appropriate in defining the guys who had to fly these hulking bombers.ĭilettante that I am, I am entranced by older military aircraft. With that being said, airplanes are fascinating and historically significant machines, so when our regional airport hosted a small airshow, I was more than happy to tour a couple of World War II-era bombers. It’s not rational (are most phobias?), and it doesn’t matter how many times my mom reminds me that I regularly drive a Corvair, my year is ruined if a flight is in my future. My Korean Conflict-era Buick with a couple of midcentury bombers…everyday stuff.
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