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Posted On: 02/26/2018 7:19:20 PM
Post# of 127549
Until a few days ago, I never knew that you needed to be at least a sergeant or higher before you could be assigned a position in a bomber flying missions in Europe.
All these men were sergeants or higher because the Army Air Force learned early that when crews of the B-17's and B-24's of the Eighth Air Force bailed out over enemy territory and were taken prisoner (although many of them managed to evade the Germans via Spain thanks to the French underground), the stalags where they where imprisoned were run by the Luftwaffe. It was German practice to treat sergeants who became POWs different from and better than corporals or privates. Further, Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goring, who had a romantic view of the "knights of the sky" after his World War 1 experience as an ace, insisted that the stalags holding downed airmen be superior to stalags that held infantry. So the AAF decided that any man who flew over enemy territory should be a sergeant or an officer.
The above info is from page 86 of THE WILD BLUE - The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany by Stephen E.. Ambrose
All these men were sergeants or higher because the Army Air Force learned early that when crews of the B-17's and B-24's of the Eighth Air Force bailed out over enemy territory and were taken prisoner (although many of them managed to evade the Germans via Spain thanks to the French underground), the stalags where they where imprisoned were run by the Luftwaffe. It was German practice to treat sergeants who became POWs different from and better than corporals or privates. Further, Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goring, who had a romantic view of the "knights of the sky" after his World War 1 experience as an ace, insisted that the stalags holding downed airmen be superior to stalags that held infantry. So the AAF decided that any man who flew over enemy territory should be a sergeant or an officer.
The above info is from page 86 of THE WILD BLUE - The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany by Stephen E.. Ambrose
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