Flak comes from the German word for anti-aircraft fire - Flugabwehrkanone.
As a young man I worked with a WWII vet, a tail gunner in a B-17, who was shot down on his second mission over Nazi Germany and spent 18 months in a POW camp. He didn't like catching flak.
According to one wartime survey, "Approximately 86 percent of the casualties were hit by flak fragments. Less than 4 percent were hit by shells or shell fragments fired from enemy fighter planes." http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwii/woundblstcs/chapter9.htm
Pewster - I m trying to remember where I ran across this statistic that the European Theater saw a casualty rate of over one third for the USAAF bombers.
If this source is to be believed, the USAAF lost 88,119 killed/missing and 17,360 wounded during WWII.
According to one wartime survey, "Approximately 86 percent of the casualties were hit by flak fragments. Less than 4 percent were hit by shells or shell fragments fired from enemy fighter planes."
ReplyDeletehttp://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwii/woundblstcs/chapter9.htm
Pewster - I m trying to remember where I ran across this statistic that the European Theater saw a casualty rate of over one third for the USAAF bombers.
ReplyDeleteIf this source is to be believed, the USAAF lost 88,119 killed/missing and 17,360 wounded during WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
The USMC lost the greatest percentage of their personnel (3.66%).
We need Flak for libtards.
ReplyDeleteKid - that won't happen as long as the liberal media is manning the guns.
ReplyDelete