A couple of years ago, I read a book called "The Big Show" by Pierre Clostermann - a French fighter pilot who volunteered with the RAF. I was impressed with his descriptions of the physical toll flying Fighters took on the lives of those young men. He describes the exhaustion of going from sea level to 30,000 ft+ and back several times a day with primitive oxygen systems...sweating in suits waiting to take off and having the sweat freeze at altitude a few minutes later, the stress of always having to know where you were and, importantly, where they were, dealing with unforecasted weather, the non stop smoking on the ground, bad food etc.

Didn't come away with a sense it was at all glamorous - sounded a lot like hard work with the very real possibility of dying at any random moment.

I never knew they wore g suits or even had them back then.

+1...who knew?

Jim

Before they signed up for the war, those young P-51 pilots were chasing girls, hanging out at the drive-in, listening to that scrawny delinquent Sinatra on the radio, drinking beer and generally doing what all teenagers do. I am privileged to teach their grandsons and great-grandsons (as well as their granddaughters and great-granddaughters) the art of fighter aviation in the classroom and simulator. The kids today are standing up to their challenges as well as any generation before them. They are facing long deployments in strange lands, fighting a war no one seems to care about. The ones going thru training now will face the horrible prospect of being "the last to die." They are all eager to do their duty. To paraphrase President Reagan: "Where do we get such men and women?"

My Dad flew P-39s in N Africa and Sicily, P-47s in India and P-40s in China with the Flying Tigers. His back is so bad from all the repeated G stress he can barely stand upright and, although he had his 91st birthday in October, he may not make it to 92 (and he really doesn't care). He's the last of all of his buddies and the seven brothers who served in the Army in WW II.

I am constantly saddened to think that he can remember being young and ready to take on the world, doing something that created a legacy for his country that stands to this day, and now it seems no one takes the time to care.

Who didn't know it, but was paraphrasing James A. Michener's "The Bridges at Toko-Ri."