Okay, I just discovered the most decorated crew of an airplane from US. You think it would be a fighter pilot? Nope. It is a crew of a certain B-17,
whose story defies belief.
So, lemme get this straight: a pilot fails to qualify to become the guy in charge of a smaller bomber despite many attempts of other people to make him succeed. Since then he is permanently stationed as a co-pilot, finds it extremely boring and, get this, falls asleep during a bombing run
in the middle of a flak bombardment. Pilot has to wake him up by punching! Nevertheless, the dude wants to fly and succeeds finding a rag-tag crew of people who nobody else wants to fly with.
They then repair a bullet ridden "never to fly again" B-17 at the airport, retrofitting it with more guns than is legal, including pilot operated twin guns shooting right in front like in a fighter. After the Air Command suggests that the bomber to be transferred to more capable hands,
they refuse to leave it and threaten to shoot anybody who attempts to take it from then, basically commandeering their aircraft. The same bunch of people is then given a chance by the Air Command to fly missions nobody else wants, and it is discovered that these dudes are pretty
darn good at what they do, always volunteering for the worst places.
The linked story is a description of how somebody flew a B-17 LITERALLY straight through a suicide mission and lived through to tell about it (all except one), but given that the pilot lost half his blood, and was consequently 15 months in a hospital, it had to be pretty darn close!
