In the China-Burma-India theater, H. Read Vaughn remembers aircrews calling their flight path “aluminum road” since pilots could navigate home by following the wreckage of U.S. aircraft scattered beneath them. In the Pacific, Army air forces carried out strategic bombing campaigns over vast distances in anticipation of invading Japan. In Europe, the Eighth Air Force became the world’s largest air force, able to deploy thousands of heavy bombers and fighter planes on a single combat mission. In less than three years, the Eighth flew more than 600,000 missions and dropped more than 670,000 tons of bombs. This effectively eliminated German air power and crippled their war industries. Ensuring allied air supremacy, the U.S. Army Air Force prepared the way for the D-Day invasion of occupied France.

Being a pilot was a very dangerous job: over 40,000 American airmen died in combat and thousands were killed in training accidents.