[ Post a Response | 457th Bomb Group Message Board ]
Posted by Alan Morton
on 10/26/2008, 7:19 am, in reply to "Photo of Sweater Out Crew"
99.162.86.12
Hi Norman ...
The above photo and the New Sheep Skin Jackets that this Flight Crew is wearing were short lived
in England for one reason, "the advent of the electric long john underwear we wore on Combat Missions.
The enlisted men wore their electric underwear and then their coveralls. The Officers wore their
Dress Uniforms over the top of the electric underwear in combat.
But, the above heavy jackets were worn on high altitude Training Missions in the States. And, as you can
see these jackets are brand new. We all had and wore sheep skin pants too. We wore heavy sheep
skin boots, gloves and helmet/oxygen masks.
At high altitude we still were cold to the bone. The inside of the bomber was 50 degrees below zero,
with open windows in the waist of the A/C. The B-17 cabins were not pressurized or heated.
It was very easy for our oxygen masks to freeze-over and we could die in minutes, if we didn't have
entire Flight Crew oxygen checks every 15 minutes from positions tail to nose constantly.
New Subject: I've asked "Sheila" and "Eric Zemper" to help me "find the Flight Crew or their living next of kin ...
sixty-four years after the fact. We're making very slow progress, the idea is to assemble one photo
of the entire Crew ... and we know that is nearly impossible; then at least an individual photo of each
of the nine man crew members as we can.
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