Art with meaning

[Bill Greenwood]

At Oshkosh every year I like to visit Virginian Bader or Aces High booths displaying some great warbird and other aviation art. One particularly caught my eye this year, very evocative of what it would have been like to be 22 years old and risking your life over and over for 25 missions. It's titled PRAYERS ANSWERED, and it shows a lone B-17 over France returning from bombing deep into German. They have 2 engines running, one feathered and the other one smoking, and have glass shot out in the nose, holes in the fuselage. .They are lucky to make 180 mph , too slow to stay with their formation, and easy prey to any fighter that finds them. A 10 man crew and you can bet those who are still alive are praying to get home. Ahead perhaps 30 miles the coast and the channel is visible, they need another half hour. And above them and to the right, 2 RAF Spitfires sliding into position off their wing tip. A prayer answered, and this time they get to live another day, to come back again soon and do it once more.

I was still a kid when I was that age. I've flown a fighter, but Ive never been a fighter pilot.