In the unreal world airmen were thrown into “a man came to think of his plane, his flying mates and his own skill or endurance as the only familiar elements he has to hold on to,” she wrote in a report to Eighth Air Force command. “He attaches a tremendous importance to them and suffers when anything happens to them.” To forget the war completely was to forget who you had become and who you could count on when it mattered most. Not the understanding staff of a regal estate on the Thames, but nine other scared men in a Fortress under fire.
