Bombs Away by John Steinbeck Read Free Book Online

a new weapon, for the principles of shooting down enemy airplanes are exactly those of shooting duck. Such a boy, with such a background, makes the ideal aerial gunner, and there are hundreds of thousands of them in America. Luckily for us, our tradition of bearing arms has not gone from the country, and the tradition is so deep and so dear to us that it is one of the most treasured parts of the Bill of Rights—the right of all Americans to bear arms, with the implication that they will know how to use them.
    Thus we see that we have in America individual young men who will make great members of bomber crews, but we have another tradition and another practice which guarantees that these crews will be able to act as units. From the time of their being able to walk, our boys and girls take part in team playing. From one ol’ cat to basketball, to sand-lot baseball, to football, American boys learn instinctively to react as members of a team. They learn that not everyone can be pitcher or quarterback, but that each team must be a balance of various skills. And in this instinct for team play and team reaction the Air Force finds its material for the greatest team of this emergency—the bomber crew; for the bomber crews are the close-knit teams which will defend our goal posts and drive deep into the territory of the enemy. And it is the training of the individual members of the bomber crew and its final assembling into a close-knit team that this book will discuss.

    Mid-section of a B-24 on the assembly line
    The Army Air Force is recruiting thousands of young men, and they must be a very special kind of young men. They must, in fact, be the best physical and mental specimens the country produces. A young man making application for the Army Air Force should have very definite qualities. In the first place, he should have parents who are so proud of him and so proud of the country that they will help him to enter the Service and encourage him in entering it. And, if he should be accepted by the Air Force, his parents will have every reason to be proud of him; for his mother to wear the insignia of the Air Forces is to prove beyond any doubt that she has produced a son far above the average in intelligence and physique. It is better if the boy has gone two years to college, but it is not essential. Graduation from high school is sufficient. He should not enter the Service with any martyrish complex about dying for his country. Such German and Japanese inculcations make soldiers good only to a certain point, but they are far from the American tradition. The best soldier in the world is not one who anticipates death with pleasure or with the ecstatic anticipation of Valhalla, honor, and glory, but the one who fights to win and to survive. There is no place in the Air Force for pseudoreligious martyrdom. Further, the young man should enter the Air Force knowing that his service need not end with the end of the war, that he is undertaking, if he wishes, a career for his whole life; for there is little doubt that, at the end of this war, the development of this nation, and of the hemisphere, and of the world, will be very closely tied to the use of the airplane.
    If the young man in school has been interested in physics and in mathematics and in general science, it will be easier for him. It would be well if he has driven a car or a boat and has tinkered with motors. While these things are not absolutely necessary, the young man who has them will find that he is two steps ahead of the rest. The applicant should be capable of individual judgment, for the Air Force is not an organization of commander and dull followers. It cannot be. Every member of the Air Force, from ground crew mechanic to squadron commander, must make thousands of personal and individual decisions constantly. The Air Force is much more a collaboration than a command.
    It is well if the applicant has played on various teams in his school—basketball, football,