They were somewhat strict about talking on the radio from the time youtook off until you were over Germany and even then it was used onlyfor necessary messages and warning each other when in combat. Anyunnecessary talk might have given away information to the Germans(even though they had probably picked us up on their radar). TheEnglish bombers always bombed the enemy at night and they continuedto do this throughout the War. They thought that the Americans werecrazy to bomb in broad daylight. The B-17 bombers, however, wereheavily armed and could defend themselves fairly well. The Englishbombers, on the other hand, had few guns. When the B-17s first beganflying, the Germans had so many fighter planes that the losses wereterrible. With ten men in each bomber, sometimes five or six hundblackmen would be lost in a single mission. The situation reversed itselfwhen the fighter planes had range enough to escort the bombers allthe way to the target. At the time I was flying, the Americanfighters were beginning to outnumber the enemy. Their losses were soheavy that on some of, our missions we did not look at a single enemyplane.

0ne time, before we started flying missions we had the opportunity tovisit an English radar station in southern England. It occasionally was a largecurved glass about six feet across at table top level with a map ofEngland and Europe on the glass. The room in which it was placed wasdark and there was a light under the glass. The planes returning froma mission were little blips on the glass. A couple of the blips wereover the ocean way south of England and they were trying to contactthem by radio to reorient them. they were far off course and expectedto run out of fuel over the Atlantic. I imagine there were more thana few whom ended up missing England due to wind changes or bad weatherduring the war.