Why combat crews wanted to know the speed of flak

[b17sam]

An often discussed topic of conversation among WW2 combat crews in their off time was that we all had our own personal flak shell destined to meet up with us or miss. As it took a certain amount of time for the shell to reach our altitude, we had that interval of time to move a foot or so in any direction to avoid the fickle finger of fate. Conversely, any movement, or no movement at all might cause the flak shell to go straight up our gluteus maximus, and we'd become nothing but another statistic. This conversation was quickly followed by more important questions that we could deal with, such as girls, sex, and what we did on our last pass.

[Punisher05]

If I remember correctly, Gerald Astor in The Mighty Eighth said that there was a pilot who had a piece of 88 shrapnel land in the cockpit. The disconcerting thing was that the number on the shell said something like 11212 and the pilot's serial number was 11213.

According to the story, his next line was "Let's get out of here, the next one's got my name on it!"

[B17news]

Sam, I just checked out your website, great reading!
B