12 Mar Shot at and Missed
Shot at and Missed, WWII Book by Jack R. Myers
I’ve always wanted to be in a Book Club. Unless I was flying on an airplane or reading a book about motivation and sales, I never seemed to have the time. Then we moved into a neighborhood with an established book club, and the first thing I did was join.
It was great until I decided to write a book. I told them that from now on, hah hah, I would be reading books with titles like Big Bombers of WWII.
Honestly, if you had told me one year ago that I would be reading a book named Shot at and Missed … and enjoying it and finishing it in two days, I never would have believed you.
Jack Myers was 18 years old when he joined the Army Air Corps. In preflight he was one inch too short to be a pilot, so they sent him to bombardier school. At the age of 20, he ended up in the 15th Air Force, stationed at Amendola Airfield in Italy, and completed over 50 missions before he was 21. Just when he had almost completed the 50 missions he needed in order to go home, he was told that he had to have flown over the target 35 times. So he flew 54 missions in all.
His story gives a great visual of the day to day life of the B-17 air crews. It was easy to read. Some of these military books read like college textbooks. Most amazing is that I understood (almost) everything he wrote about! The Norden bombsight … dead reckoning … target of opportunity … flak …
From his story, I have written a list of questions I need to ask Herman’s two crewmates:
- Did you have radar? (I don’t think so.)
- Did you smoke on the plane? (Huge surprise to me. Now that I think about it, I’ll bet they did. Even with the oxygen canisters right there. They all smoked before they turned the oxygen on.)
- Did officers get a fifth of American whiskey each month?
- Did the bombardier sit in the nose during take-off or move there after they were in the air?
- Did Herman (or any of you) ever walk through the bomb bay when the doors were open?
The title of Jack Myers’ book comes from a Winston Churchill quote: There’s nothing quite as exhilarating as being shot at and missed. (Winston Churchill)
Exhilarating? Hmmm
Shot At and Missed: Recollections of a World War II Bombardier
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