"Mission to Berlin" 12x12 acrylic collage
I have been fortunate to receive a number of mission reports from my Dad's air force service. He managed to survive in an era where the failure to return rate was as high as 75%. This mission recorded the flak as" thick and accurate". He was younger at this time than my youngest daughter. He described flying through flak as "similar to having someone hold a tin washtub over your head and banging the hell out of it with a baseball bat". The problem with flak was that it penetrated those thin aircraft walls and anyone within. The B-17's were legendary for being able to return to base shot all to smithereens but able to return (most of) their crew.
