ubject: SGT. GREIGO'S FLAK JACKET
From: (John S. Shinal)
Date: 3/3/04 6:57 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

(ArtKramr) wrote:

No balls at all. At least not as much as you had when you flew all your
missions.. Tell us about it

More to the point, they allowed Griego to keep *his* balls by
using his flak jacket in a clever manner.

John Comer's B-17 memoirs (engineer/top turret gunner)
recounts their navigator having the equipment shop stitch up
protective armor for his crotch that laced elaborately over his normal
flight gear.

One day they were assigned several new crewmembers, who
arrived at the flight line jittery and gray-faced with worry. The
navigator launched into an elaborate tirade about the Nazi Flak
gunners trying to shoot him in the crotch, and how he wasn't going to
let them, etc - insisting the new guys help him lace up the crotch
armor while cussing the Flak gunners and every other German he could
think of.

The crew loosened up and flew a fairly tough mission where
they performed very well.

Sometimes a little improvisation with the body armor is just
the ticket. There are plenty of first-person accounts of Huey crews in
Vietnam who had Flak jackets on their floors; Cobra pilots, too (hard
to imagine in that tight space, but...)



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There is a term in the English language that describes that action. It is
called covering your ass. (grin)


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer