Some people say those were the good old days. I'm not sure about that. But in the years since I flew in combat, I have realized that the reason we got in and started those engines every time had nothing to do with patriotism or bravery. Patriotic speeches and morale boosting jingoism had nothing to do with it. The real reason lay elsewhere.
The air war in Europe was flown, and won, by boys in their teens. I was twenty when I arrived in Europe. And I was older than the gunners because I had spent half a year in Mechanics School. The old man of our crew was the radioman 'Pops' Gifford at twenty-five. Certainly, we heard about boys that wouldn't, or just couldn't, climb into an airplane for a mission. I never saw it happen. But I heard about it.
All a boy had to do was go to his pilot and say "I don't want to fly any more." Very few did that. Perhaps because the real punishment was that flight crews wanted nothing to do with someone who had refused to fly, no matter how much courage it took to make that decision.
The real reason that we climbed into the aircraft for every mission was that we didn't want to let our crew down. I honestly believe that as a crew, we would have climbed in and started those big Wright Cyclones even if we had known beforehand that we would not come back. The bond between us was that strong.
