re: WWII: Would You Choose the Pacific or Europe?

I choose anywhere but the ball turret of a B-17.

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I got a chance to walk through "Fifi" several weeks ago here in Olympia. Absolutely amazing to see the flight deck and touch everything on that monster.

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It is an amazing piece of machinery considering it's '40's tech... Got to see it with my Grandfather many years ago when it came to Savannah.

Even my wife, who doesn't know jack about aviation, looked up to the sky while we were having drinks on the patio and as Fifi was departing KOLM at 1000ft. AGL, she said "Holy Crap that's cool!"

My late father served in 1st Division, USMC for about three years in the Pacific. Never would talk much about it other than a few humorous stories non-combat related. His health suffered throughout his life and I'm convinced it was service connected. He died at 59, pretty broken down. Would never buy anything Japanese made mainly because they beheaded his best friend when the war was all but over. My father in law spent about three years in Europe driving a jeep mainly. He never suffered from much of anything and died at age 85. From what I know, take Europe any day.

Darth,

I figured you would get a kick out of this. So apparently I got what I said earlier about the Bataan Death March mixed up with a family member of mine. My great aunts father was actually on the USS Indianapolis and was 1 of the 317 survivors. He passed away in 2009. Another vet from my dads hometown, its a super small town, was a survivor of the Bataan Death March and POW for 3 1/2 years after it. He is the one who hated MacArthur and cursed him to damnation haha. Crazy to think 2 guys from such a small town were survivors of such historical military events. Mr Dugas passed away in 2002. My grandparents were friends with both, though I do not know if they ever got any stories. Boy I would have loved to have been a little bit younger and heard what it was like. Unreal their ordeals.

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blew a tire on a crosswind landing the Friday prior as it was really windy here and she sat for four days awaiting a new one. Can't even imagine how much that sucker cost and how much it was to ship.

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I saw that... I bet Some got quite nervous!

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Actually wrote a book/pamphlet on tactics and violated three of his main rules on his final flight. He tried to turn with a Zero, at low speed and low altitude, and didn't release his drop tanks. It was early in the flight, and he was near-obsessed with equaling and passing Bong's total score of 40. With his flight of 4 P-38s against a single Zero, he was thinking quick kill, then resume hunting. But the Zero was flown by an expert.

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^^^^
Yup

It was kind of surreal seeing a replica static display of "Pudgy" at Joint Base McGuire Dix. Kind of like if you saw a replica of "Marge".

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Europe, serving under Patton.

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He'd still slap you :)

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For me my preference would be Europe. War is hell no matter where it is but the Pacific seems like a special kind of hell. I imagine being in the Pacific is like being stuck in the Ardennes during The Battle of the Bulge for the entirety of the war. As an observer, the Ardennes forest represented the worst of Europe; being stuck in Belgium during winter with no supplies, as artillery rained downed upon you mixed in with falling trees and splintered wood. I imagine everyday in the Pacific being like this

In The War, someone comments that you can surround 50,000 Germans and they'll surrender but if you surround 500 Japanese they'll fight to the death

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Europe.

It's not just the Japanese soldiers but the tropical diseases, which ravaged our forces.

Thanks for sharing