![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() “The flak was so thick you could walk on it,” said Perrone. Of the 400 Flying Fortresses launched for the mission, 60 were shot down and 600 Airmen were lost. 6, 1943, Perrone’s crew joined a raid on a German ball bearing production plant. The bombers wreaked havoc on the German war machine, but allied casualties began to mount due to German 88mm anti-aircraft gun shells, commonly described as “flak,” and the vulnerability of the bombers to be attacked head-on by the Luftwaffe or German air force.īomber losses rapidly increased to a rate the Eighth could not withstand. Nighttime area bombing attacks by the RAF complimented the daytime precision bombing raids by the U.S. Most missions involved hundreds of B-17 and B-24 Liberator bombers targeting ball-bearing plants, rail yards, oil production facilities and aircraft manufacturing factories. “War, it’s a young man’s game.”Īccording to Perrone, the amount of bombers in the air during missions was mind-boggling. I prayed a lot, I can tell you that,” said Perrone. It’s been so long ago, I can’t think of all the ins and outs. “You’re by yourself and it’s an odd feeling (shooting someone down). He is credited with 3.5 kills from the ball turret. Casualty rates for heavy bomber crews also reached as high as 89 percent.ĭuring his time at RAF Ridgewell, England from 1943 – 1945 Perrone flew 32 missions with the 533rd Bomb Squadron at the height of the aerial campaigns against the Third Reich. Airmen were asked to complete a 25-mission quota at a time when the life expectancy of a crew didn’t surpass six missions. Many never did, however, as between 19 flying bombing missions for the “Mighty 8th” proved to be the most dangerous occupation in the U.S. “We’ve come home on a wing and a prayer, sometimes you come in on two engines, sometimes two engines and a half of a wing, but you got home.” ![]() “The B-17 was the best airplane ever built, ‘cause it brought you home,’” he said. He wanted to sit in the cockpit as a pilot, but a failed depth perception test found him sitting underneath the plane as a ball turret gunner on the B-17 Flying Fortress.īut while his view of the ground may have changed, his view of the bomber never wavered. Meade (AFNS) - At 19, he went to war, and now at 94, he’s the only living member of his 10-man bomber crew who flew missions over Germany during World War II as part of the Eighth Air Force. ![]()
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