Dr. Sheeley described the excruciating ordeal of a navigator whose oxygen mask was perforated by a flak blast that blew open the nose of the plane. With his oxygen supply impaired, he lay unconscious for a full hour. “Six weeks later, his hands, feet, ears, nose were amputated, his frozen eyeballs had been [removed], necrotic tissue was dropping from his cheekbones. He is still alive.” Unknown numbers of men died because their crewmates lacked either the medical knowledge or equipment to save them. When a tail gunner on a B-17 had both cheeks of his buttocks blown off by cannon fire, his
...more
