For the crews of the Eighth Air Force, survival was measured in missions — twenty-five to finish a tour and rotate home, a number few reached in 1943. The B-17 and B-24 flew unpressurized and unheated; at 25,000 feet over Germany the temperature fell to −40°, and in the early daylight raids frostbite put more men out of action than flak or fighters. Crews layered into sheepskin or electrically heated suits, breathed bottled oxygen, and clipped on a parachute they hoped never to use. When the Memphis Belle's crew completed their count in May 1943, they became famous for the simplest reason — they had beaten the odds. This crewman is caught mid-stride, walking the hardstand in a brown shearling-collared flight jacket over a yellow B-4 "Mae West" life vest, his parachute harness cinched across his chest. He carries a canvas kit bag in one hand and his leather flight helmet and goggles in the other, trousers laced tight at the ankles against the cold. He belongs in a pre-mission diorama on an English airfield — group him with the U.S.A.A.F. Bomber Captain and the Ball Turret Gunner to build a crew walking out to their ship, under the command of Lt. Col. James Doolittle. W. Britain model 10207. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm), matte-painted metal. Single foot figure on a sculpted groundwork base. Boxed.
