My father-in-law didn't like to talk too much about his bombing missions ... he had two co-pilots killed in-flight who were obviously sitting right next to him.
Most of his crew were kids - 19 to 20 years old. They called him "Pops" because he was 26 to 27 years old. He was an "old man" to them.
Dad said he would have rather been a fighter pilot ... because he wanted to be able to "dish it out, rather than just sit there and take it" ... but, he was somewhere between 6'1" and 6'2" and the fighter cockpits were pretty limited as to space. Most fighter pilots were smaller guys. Although, a friend of my father's was a P-38 squadron commander in the Pacific and he was 6'5"! He wasn't supposed to be a fighter pilot, but the P-38 was bigger than most fighters and he took out his seat and sat on the floor board of the plane. He had back problems for the rest of his life because of it.
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