# "Heroes of the Sky: The Mighty 8th Air Force"



## Guest (Dec 15, 2020)

Just finished watching this amazing and disturbing documentary on the National Geographic channel. It described in detail, and with confronting historic footage, the bombing sorties over Germany in 1943 and 1944 when the 8th (Army) Air Force lost 26,000 men and hundreds and hundreds of aircraft. Lt-Gen Doolittle and Lt.-Gen Le May had their words spoken by actors. There were disastrous missions, like that into Regensburg and Schweinfurt, Germany, to destroy aircraft factories. On the first such mission 60 planes were lost and 550 men killed. The Germans had re-built the factory in no time and the group had to return; the second time the losses were yet more horrific. Lt.-Gen. Le May had to tell the airmen that the first mission had been a failure; that must be hard to take when your buddies have been killed or shot down.

These were just incredibly brave men, most of whom knew they would never return from their missions. The 8th Air Force lost 26% of its men on those missions. As I watched the footage and heard the stories, many from the diaries of airmen, I was wondering if they'd checked their privilege being going on those missions. I mean, there was an abundance of 'white privilege' going around in those days for those males - oh, and 'toxic masculinity'. (You just cannot believe that there are people of such stupidity and lack of intelligence around in our time who use these pathetic labels to demonize white people.)


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