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What's with the dozen swastikas in the first picture? Number of enemy planes he shot down?

• WalterBright 7y ago
  They're the claimed enemy airplanes shot down. Some of those kills were shared with other airplanes. There were several gunners on the B-17, so the number there represents all of their work. The painted bombs above it represent the number of combat missions. My father was the navigator, which was up front. His gun pointed out the side, which made for rather difficult deflection shots. He said the favored attack by the Luftwaffe was head on, which made deflection shots as they passed that much harder. The nose of the B-17 is a plexiglass hemisphere, and he could see the Me-109's firing straight at them, and wondered how they could miss. Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, no armor.