B-17 Bomber And Crew Facts/Statistics

Here are a few quick yet informative stats about American's most famous bomber, the B-17 Flying Fortress. You'll also learn what the crews had to endure and all in under 2 minutes. Enjoy.
MilkmanDansays...

I'd wager that a reasonable percentage of the lucky guys that survived a full tour of duty wouldn't agree with the assessment of flak jackets being essentially "unstylish 40 pound vests".

Also, the video makes it sound like the success rate of coming back from a single mission was 25-33%. I think those numbers are more accurate for the rate of completing a full tour of 25 missions (before being rotated out). The number I recall is about a 4% loss rate on a single mission:
100%-4% = 96%
.96^25 = 36%

If the chances of coming back from a single mission were 33%:
.33^25 = (pretty much zero).

I wouldn't want to chance my life on a roll of the dice where I die unless I roll a 5 or a 6, but that's pretty close to accurate...


Those nitpicks aside, still a great video that gets the newer generations that are too young to either have a grandfather from the war or to have watched Memphis Belle a bit of a sense of what those guys went through.

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