Vanishing Generation, Part 5 - One Mo' Time

Russell Meyne, B-17 pilot, says, "But Pearl Harbor, of course, was one about 4-hour period," and he didn't get hit, didn't get shot..."there was no continuity to it...the beginning and end was right there." Thirty-five missions, it took a year of training from February '43 until end of July '44 before they were finished with the crew. "It was a long drawn-out period...and you had so much more to think about and you were with the same nine guys...all the time. We had a real good group of people that worked well together. We were all kinds. Kansas, Michigan, Ohio, New York, and Arizona, but they were all different....but they all worked together very well...just great." The plane they flew most of their missions in was inherited from another crew who had finished. "My radio operator kept a diary...and he wrote a book...about our missions." They had a gunner that quit 34 times...every time he would say, "I'm not going anymore...you guys are going to get killed." But the next time, "he'd be out there...and that's what's on the book." 

Standards

• Along with the rest of the world, the United States and South Carolina experienced economic instability during this period. As a result, political instability and worldwide conflict consumed the world in the 1940s. Following World War II, the United States emerged as a world leader through political policies and economic growth.
  • 5.3.CX Contextualize the technological and geographic influence on military strategies in the Pacific and European theaters of war of World War II.
• This indicator was designed to promote inquiry into military and economic policies during World War II, to include the significance of military bases in South Carolina. This indicator was also developed to foster inquiry into postwar economic developments and demographic changes, to include the immigration of Jewish refugees following the Holocaust.
  • 8.5.CO Compare South Carolina and U.S. wartime contributions and demobilization after World War II.
• This indicator was constructed to facilitate inquiry into how economic conditions prompted an evolution of fiscal and monetary policy featuring significant turning points. This indicator also supports inquiry into the laissez-faire policies of the 1920s, the balance of free markets and government intervention of the 1930s, and the command economies during World War I and World War II.
  • USHC.4.CO Develop a comparative analysis of the motives for and outcomes of American policies regarding foreign intervention.

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