"Lucky."
I guess so.
"Lt Edwin Wright of the 404th Fighter Group
Wright belonged to the Ninth Air Force, which, following the ground invasion of France in June 1944, moved its bases from Britain to mainland Europe in order to provide closer support to the advancing troops. This picture was taken near St Trond, Belgium.
It was not the first time Wright's aircraft had been hit on a mission. By the time this photograph was taken, the 19-year-old had completed 39 missions and survived being hit by flak six times.
Wright was considered a very fortunate man by his squadron, who nicknamed him Lucky for his ability to evade death. The hole here measured eight inches in diameter in an 11-inch propeller. If the damage had been an inch and a half over on either side, the blade would have severed and Wright would have been brought down.
Wright died, aged 34, from lung cancer."
5 comments:
"Lucky" LT "Wright died, aged 34, from lung cancer."
Lucky Strikes?
What strikes me about this story as well as stories about the RAF pilots fighting the Battle of Britain were the ages of the pilots. Lt. Wright was 19 and had already flown 39 combat missions. Many of the Spitfire and Hurricane pilots were 18 and 19 while their squadron leader, the "Old Man", may have been 23-24.
Contrast that with today where many 19 year olds barely know how to butter their own bread without mommy's help. Don't even get me started about college students and their cry-bully ways.
Guess he used up his luck :-(
Lung cancer mainly occurs in older people. About 2 out of 3 people diagnosed with lung cancer are 65 or older, while less than 2% are younger than 45. The average age at the time of diagnosis is about 70.
It's damned shame he died so young. I don't know, but it was probably from smoking. The dumbest people are the ones that continue to smoke cigarettes!
I had an uncle who served in a P-38 unit in the 9th. He was chief armorer for his squadron, which went to France shortly after the break-out and began flying from dirt strips a mile or two behind the fighting line, moving as the infantry advanced. Their job was close air support of ground operations, a role that the 9th Air Force CO, General Elwood Quesada believed in 100 percent. My uncle, on the rare occasions when he talked about it, said it was common that planes returned with moderate to heavy damage from ground fire. He used to say the pilots joked about flying with bayonets on their propeller hubs.
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