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of mess kits. [[strike through]]As a pilot of a bomb group, and flight leader, I flew many missions escorted by fighter pilots, and my regards for them are the very highest. As long as we have these fighters like them, and bomber pilots like the other boys I was flying with, we will do all right.[[/strike through]] I feel that I am tremendously lucky to be back in the States alive and well, because I have lost many classmates in my own outfit and others, who were just as good pilots, if not better, as I was, who will never see their families and the States again because they made the sacrifice. It is hard to realize these fellows are giving their lives, but I've seen them. I don't car how much people give, in my estimation, they can never repay the debt they owe these boys who were lost in combat. One of my most vivid recollections of some of the things that happened during our contacts with the enemy was when an antiaircraft shell hit one of the planes in my flight. It was one of those freak accidents that happens once in a thousand times. This shell sheared off a couple of the braces of the ball turret in the plane, and the additional weight on the other braces pulled the turret completely loose from the ship, and it dropped out. The gunner [[strike through]] of [[?]][[/strike through]] because of the lack of space had no parachute and no chance w at all to get out of the plummeting turret. I later looked at the ship, and it looked just as though someone had sheared off those braces with a blowtorch, they were so cleanly cut. [[strike through]]I had to get into combat before I realized the only difference between the Army and Navy fighting men was the color of their ties. They all work together, and the old fashioned rivalry is forgotten. Navy fighter pilots protecting Army bombers, and vice versa. Since I returned to the States landings have been made on Bougenville and[[/strike through]]