Quote:
Originally Posted by August
You must have never served in a crew then. The crew is part of the ship, the ship is part of the crew. The same thing applies to aircraft. To honor one is to honor the other.
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And in this case, a worthy honor. These guys flew low-level in aircraft designed for level bombing at higher altitude; they flew low through heat-roiled air obscured in many cases by dense smoke, at altitudes that would make any pilot's sphincter pucker on a good day, in aircraft that were built before they were born, handling four powerful engines and a large airframe that will suddenly get a lot lighter after that load is away.
Having ridden in a similar-era aircraft - and for pleasure, at that, not carrying a full load as they were - and then seeing the photos of the wing failure and crash... words fail me. "Morselization" indeed; I don't need to look it up for it to conjure very grim images.