80 Men in One Mission ...

I saw this post on Tumblr today, and it reminded me of a recurring thought I have about the way we wage war now.

From the Tumblr account Peer Into the Past

The mission this bomber returned from made two passes over its target in Germany, an unusual maneuver that earned its group the Presidential Unit Citation.  It cost them eight planes.

Let me jump now to another thought, one I had some twenty years ago at the start of the Persian Gulf War in 1991.  As the first cruise missiles and stealth bombers struck at Iraq, targeting individual buildings and even rooms with an accuracy that would have left World War II's Bomber Command in a fetal position from envy and joy, it struck me that we would never again see the scenes they did in that last great global conflict.  Dutch citizens told stories of hearing the continuous noise of bombers, squadron after squadron, group after group, wing after wing, roaring over their homes for thirty minutes or an hour, a twilight sky filled with giant airplanes from horizon to horizon.

If you've heard the sound of a single B-17, or even the roar of the Rolls Royce engine of a Spitfire passing over, it makes it hard to imagine the continuous, vibrating rumble of all those planes going by.  It would be something that would drive the knowledge of the power, the combined, apocalyptic destructive strength of the Allies down into every atom of your being.

Now, we can deliver that explosive load of all those planes in a single aircraft, and we don't have to fill the skies.  Seventy years ago, we had to carpet bomb to assure the destruction of the target.  Today, a cruise missile takes a turn at the nearest street corner, and delivers the load of a whole squadron into the office of the enemy's commanding general, just to the left of the file cabinet.

So, returning to that 1944 mission with the two passes over the target: Let's do the math, shall we?  Eight planes, ten men per plane, in one mission on one day in the war.  Eighty probably dead.  The greatest loss we had in Afghanistan recently was thirty-eight, when a Chinook helicopter went down.  If we lost eighty men in a single action today, I think there would be Congressional hearings.  In 1944, it was just another day.

Is there a point to this?  I'm not sure.  One is reluctant to compliment us on the quality and tidyness of our warmaking today.  I'm sure the Pakistanis who have served as collateral damage on recent drone strikes might have a few thoughts on that.  Perhaps it is to spend a moment on the courage of those men, climbing into those bombers with the certain knowledge that some of the planes would not return.

Perhaps it is just something to think about.  Draw your own conclusions ...