re: It's 1943, you're 18 years old, which would terrify you more?

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In 1943, the 8th was taking such a beating from the Luftwaffe and flak, your odds of surviving your 25 missions was remote. In 1944, after the Luftwaffe was marginalized, but not defeated, they raised the mission requirement to 30, and then 35. It was an extremely high risk occupation.

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My dad was a B-17 pilot. He flew 33 missions over Germany - most of them at a time when the life expectancy of a B-17 crew was 2-3 missions.

When he flew his crew from the US to Europe, his assignment was to replace a crew that had been lost in an earlier mission. The day before he actually arrived, the entire squadron to which he had been assigned was shot down.

He flew his last mission on the day Germany surrendered. He never talked much about the war, but he did tell me about that last mission. He said he (as group commander of the three squadrons) received a radio message telling him to abort the mission because Germany had surrendered. But the radio message didn't contain that day's code word - so he decided it might be one of the typical German propaganda broadcasts, and continued on and bombed the target (Berlin).

My dad was 18 in 1943. Enlisted in Army Air Corps. He was flying P-51s stateside, still in training when the war ended. Apparently, late in the war, there was a surplus of fighter pilots. I believe due to the decimation of the Luftwaffe and Jap Air Force. He probably would have been sent to Support the invasion of Japan had we not dropped Little Boy and Fat Man