JULY 2018 AH 35OPPOSITE TOP LEFT & ABOVE: 100TH BOMB GROUP FOUNDATION ARCHIVES; OPPOSITE TOP RIGHT & OPPOSITE BOTTOM: NATIONAL ARCHIVES
LIKE A GAMBLER
WHOSE LUCK
HAS GONE
COLD, WHEN
THE CREWS OF
THE 100TH HAD
A BAD DAY,
THEY HAD A
VERY BAD DAY.
O
ver the course of 22 months of aerial com-
bat, the aircrews of the 100th had served
a deadly apprenticeship as they honed
their skills and tactics. In an unemotional
analysis of the raw numbers, the Bloody 100th’s
wartime losses were not the worst suffered by the
Eighth Air Force, though they were in the top three
of losses by heavy bomber groups. The official his-
tory from the 100th Bomb Group Foundation cites
184 missing aircrew reports on 306 missions. In his
memoir An Eighth Air Force Combat Diary, 100th
copilot John Clark pointed out that “50% of the
Group’s losses occurred in only 3% of its mis-
sions.” Like a gambler whose luck has gone cold,
when the crews of the 100th had a bad day, they
had a very bad day.
More than 26,000 Eighth Air Force personnel
sacrificed their lives in service to the war effort. The
total number killed or missing in action was slightly
more than that suffered by the U.S. Marine Corps,
and a little less than half the losses sustained by the
entire U.S. Navy. Comparisons such as these do
nothing to diminish the contributions of other mili-
tary branches, but rather point out the gargantuan
scale of the Eighth Air Force’s effort. The 100th
Bomb Group’s portion of those losses was 785 men
killed outright or missing in action and 229 aircraft
destroyed or rendered unsuitable for flight.
In 2016 the Bureau of Veterans Affairs esti-
mated there were 620,000 World War II veterans
alive, but that we lose 372 per day. The responsibil-
ity for remembering, for commemorating the ser-
vice of those veterans has fallen to their children
and their grandchildren. In the case of the 100thBomb Group, a number of organizations have
taken up that obligation.
The 100th Bomb Group Foundation maintains
an extraordinarily useful website (100thbg.com),
and its members hold a biennial reunion. Last
October, 17 group veterans, all in their 90s,
attended the most recent reunion outside
Washington, D.C. A smaller reunion takes place in
February of each year in Palm Springs, Calif., in
collaboration with the Palms Springs Aviation
Museum. Other institutions connected with the
100th include the 100th Bomb Group Memorial
Museum at the former Thorpe Abbots airfield; the
American Air Museum at the Imperial War Mu-
seum in Duxford, England; the Museum of Air
Battle Over the Ore Mountains in Kovarska,
Czech Republic; and the National Museum of the
Mighty Eighth Air Force near Savannah, Ga.
More than seven decades on, the actions of the
men of the Bloody 100th still loom large in our
cultural memory. Each time we refresh those mem-
ories, we ensure that their hard-earned lessons are
not forgotten.Douglas R. Dechow’s grand uncle Tech Sgt. Harry Dale
Park was a member of the 100th Bomb Group. The
20-year-old Park was killed in a B-17 over Normandy
on August 8, 1944. Dechow is the director of digital
projects at the Center for American War Letters at
Chapman University. Further reading: A Wing and a
Prayer, by Harry H. Crosby; An Eighth Air Force
Combat Diary, by John A. Clark; Century Bomb-
ers, by Richard Le Strange; and Masters of the Air,
by Donald L. Miller.“SQUARE D” FORMATION
A mixed squadron of 100th
Group Flying Fortresses includes
a veteran B-17F (foreground)
among the newer camouflaged
and bare-metal B-17Gs.