In message , ArtKramr
writes
Subject: #1 Piston Fighter was British
From: "Paul J. Adam"
I'd call a Piper Cub, or an Auster, doing artillery observation a
"combat aircraft" - the enemy recieving the fire are just as dead.

As is the pilot, if enemy AAA or fighters catch up with him.

If you're taking direct fire from the enemy, you're in combat. Hard to
argue with that definition.

How do you feel about latrine orderlies?

Wouldn't award them combat medals unless they took and returned enemy
fire.

Would definitely consider them key personnel, because it's a
twentieth-century innovation that armies lose more troops to enemy fire
than to disease. Bombardiers sick with gastro-enteritis are as useless
as dead bombardiers until they get well (and they need decent sanitation
to get better)

The idea that an army consisted of nothing but fighting men died a
hundred and fifty years ago, and for damn good reason. The downside is,
instead of every soldier being recruited to trail the puissant pike, a
lot of troops get hired for unglamorous, boring, unheroic jobs like
field sanitation, oil changes on engines, FOD walkdowns and cook duty.

War heroes they ain't - but the heroes stand on their shoulders. If they
weren't essential they'd have been given rifles and sent to the front
(which was the traditional method): and the side with the best logistics
wins.

Art, when did your unit ever cancel missions because you were short of
spares, or bombs, or avgas, or .50cal ammo? (The enemy did, frequently)

When did you scrub sorties because flight crew were malnourished or
diseased? Do you not realise how lucky you were, to have such tremendous
logistic capability backing you?

Men made sure that your aircraft never lacked fuel, bombs, spares or
ammunition, and its crew were fed and healthy. Keeping a B-26 fed and
watered strikes me as a challenging job. Keeping an airbase's latrines
sweet in summer is a challenge I'd personally shy from. But _someone_
has to do it and it seems someone did, which let you fly your missions.

You don't value latrine orderlies? Fine, dig and maintain your own.
Don't appreciate cooks? Feed yourselves. And so it goes. Doesn't take
long before you're too busy trying to survive, to fly missions
effectively.



--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam