Bombs Away

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Book: Read Bombs Away for Free Online
Authors: John Steinbeck
discipline and yet it must delegate its responsibilities. Each member of a bomber crew has a function to perform which must come out of himself. Each member of a bomber crew has two functions—that of command as well as that of obedience. The pilot and the copilot must fly the ship, that is true, but they must take their directions from the navigator, for he knows where they are and where they are going and how to get there. Arriving at the target, the bombardier must take command, for it is he who must drop the bombs on their target, who must destroy the ship or break up the power line or riddle the factory. And all during flight, the engineer commands the engines and sees that they function. The radio man is the voice and ears of the plane, keeping it in contact with its squadron and with its base, and all the time the aerial gunners are charged with the defense of the ship. On the sharpness of their eyes and the accuracy of their aim the safety of the whole crew depends.
    This is truly a team, each member responsible to the whole and the whole responsible to the members. And only with its teamlike quality can the bomber successfully function. Here is no commander with subordinates, but a group of responsible individuals functioning as a unit while each member exercises individual judgment and foresight and care.
    This is the kind of an organization that Americans above all others are best capable of maintaining. The bomber team is truly a democratic organization. No single man can give all the orders to make a bomber effective. The effectiveness of its mission rests on the initiative and judgment of each one of its members. Not everyone on a football team insists on being quarterback. He plays the position he is best fitted to play. The best football team is one where every member plays his own particular game as a part of the team. The best bomber team is the one where each man plays for the success of the mission.
    Thus, because of the foresight of the leaders of our Air Force, a change is coming over the attitude of the young men who are joining. There was a time when a navigator was a pilot who had failed and had taken second choice, when a bombardier was a navigator who had failed and had taken second choice. That is no longer true. A pilot is one kind of man, having one kind of qualities. He might not make a good navigator. A navigator might not make a good pilot nor a good bombardier, while a bombardier requires certain physical and mental traits which are different from those required by either navigator or pilot.
    So that each man will do the work he is best fitted to do, the Air Force has devised a series of tests, mental, manual, and physical, which strongly indicate the position in the bomber each applicant should take.
    America is building two kinds of long-range bombers for its rapidly developing bomber crews, while other kinds of ships are being built and tested. It is probable that the B-17, popularly known as the Flying Fortress, and the B-24, which the British call the Liberator and for which we have no name yet, will be the nucleus and the backbone of the Air Force striking power. Both are four-engined ships capable of great cruising range and of large bomb-carrying capacity, and although they do not look alike at all they seem to be about equal in effective-ness. But such are the loyalties of Americans toward their tools and their weapons that a Flying Fortress crew will spend a night arguing for the Flying Fortress, while a B-24 crew defends its ship with some heat. The B-17, or Flying Fortress, is the best known and better publicized of the two ships. Its name has struck a responsive chord in the public mind, in spite of the fact that its name does not describe it at all. It is in no sense a fortress, it is an attack ship. Its purpose is to carry the war to an enemy, not to sit still and repel attack. Such has been the appeal of its name that all large bombers are known in the press and in the public

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