Unusual WWII Facts:Part 14

During World War II, the now-legendary VIII Bomber Command (often referred to as the Eighth Air Force) served as the principal American force assembled to attack Germany from the air. For several critical years in the early and mid-1940s, B-24 and B-17 bombers—the Flying Fortresses—from the “The Mighty 8th”, often in tandem with Royal Air Force fighters, crossed the Channel and hit strategic towns and cities in Nazi-held Europe

First crewman is wearing the RAF Type B flight helmet (famously used during the Battle of Britain), the second crewman is wearing a USAAF B-6 type shearling helmet. The mask is an early A8-B type used by bomber crews mostly from before the war up to about 1943 when it was phased out by more modern systems. The A-8B was a constant flow oxygen mask, patterned after the original design by Boothby, Lovelace, and Bulbillion (the mask was originally known as…