shag wrote:
>
>
> At any rate, the RS piece sure explains it all in terms of his tendency to
> fly by the seat of his pants -- especially flying many planes into the
> ground, including an incident where he killed 131 shipmates in a blast of
> bombs and napalm as a consequence.
Just a footnote here. Oridnarily the phrase, "flying a plane into the ground," indicates that the pilot is dead! In fact, this enters in importantly in the old MIA/POW hysteria. Quite a few Air Force casualties were listed as "missing" rather than "dead" because those who saw them go down didn't want to report that their buddy had flown his plane into the ground. It is easy to do, apparently, if you are focusing on the target rather than on where your plane is.
Carrol