It’s a film I reference often, but in this case it fits. The absolutely fantastic movie Twelve O’Clock High concerns itself with a U.S. Army Air Forces bomber group stationed in the south of England during WW2.

Tasked with “precision” daylight bombing over occupied Europe relatively early in the conflict, the group goes about its missions without fighter escorts, leaving themselves wide open to every Messerschmitt and flack gun along the route. It’s a deadly business, but orders are orders. Every day, B-17s take off into a clear blue sky, many never to return.

So many, in fact, that the base earns a stigma of being home to a “hard luck group.”

The equipment is fine, as are the men behind the controls, but luck isn’t on their side. And just as circumstances can sink the fortunes of an otherwise competent outfit like the 918th Bomb Group, so too can hard luck fall on a car. (Read More…)