World War II Chronicle: February 12, 1943
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The front page reports that the 19th Bomb Group has received four Presidential Unit Citations, making this group of veterans the most-decorated unit in American military history (to date). Maj. Gen. Robin Olds, now commanding the Second Air Force, presented the awards. Among the 19th’s B-17s mentioned in the piece is Suzie Q, whose gunners have splashed 26 enemy fighters. …
Page three reports that Dwight Eisenhower is now a four-star general… George Fielding Eliot column on page 11… Sports on page 17, featuring a column by Grantland Rice…
Roving Reporter by Ernie Pyle
A FORWARD AIRDROME IN FRENCH NORTH AFRICA — (by wireless) — Although our fighter pilots are shooting down more German planes than we are losing, still they have a deep and healthy respect for the German airmen.
“They apparently brought their very best men to Africa,” one of the boys said, “because the newcomers sure know their business. There are no green hands among them.”
American fliers who have been captured and then escaped report that there seems to be a sort of camaraderie among airmen — not in the air, but on the ground. There is no camaraderie at all in the air — it’s fight to the death and nothing else.
The other night the boys were recalling stories from the last war. They had read how Allied and German fighters would shoot up all their ammunition and then fly alongside each other and salute before starting home. There is none of that stuff in this war.Our pilots really lead lonely lives over here. There is nothing on earth for them to do but talk to each other. In two weeks you’ve talked a guy out, and after that it’s just the same old conversation day after day.
The boys hang around the field part of the day, when they’re not flying, then go to their rooms and lie in their bunks. They’ve read themselves out and talked themselves out.
There are no movies, no dances, no parties, no women — nothing. They just lie on their cots.
“We’ve got so damn lazy we won’t hardly go to the toilet,” one of them said. “We’re no damn good for anything on earth any more except flying.”Flying a fighter plane is not comfortable. There is so much to do, and you’re so cramped, and you strain so constantly watching for the enemy. Also, fighter cockpits are not heated. The pilots get terribly cold at 25,000 and 30,000 feet. They don’t wear electrically heated suits. In fact, they can’t even wear too heavy flying clothes, for their bulk would make it impossible to twist around in the cockpit. They wear only their ordinary uniforms with a pair of coveralls on top of these, plus flying boots and gloves. And they can’t even wear really heavy flying gloves.
“Our bodies don’t get so cold, it’s our hands and feet,” one of them said. “Sometimes they get so cold, they’re numb.”
It’s funny,” said another, “but you’re never cold when you’re in a fight. You actually get to sweating, and when it’s over your underwear is all wet in back. Of course that makes you get all the colder afterwards.”It’s interesting to sit in with a bunch of pilots in the evening after they’ve returned from their first mission. They’re so excited they are practically unintelligible. Their eyes are bloodshot. They are red-faced with excitement. They are so terrifically stimulated they can’t quiet down. Life has never been more wonderful. They tell the same story of their day’s adventures over and over two dozen times before bedtime.
The other night one boy couldn’t eat his supper. Another one couldn’t go to sleep.
The older boys listen patiently. They were that way not so long ago themselves. They know that battle maturity will come quickly. Just drop in a few weeks from now.
Evening star. (Washington, D.C.), 12 February 1943. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1943-02-12/ed-1/
