Dad never talked about the war but I talked to his navigator years after dad passed away. He went over all 37 missions with me... The worst one was way up the Ruhr River valley. The target was obscured by clouds and the smoke from fires set by the Germans to make bombing more difficult. They came through accurate flak without bombing, then circled and came through it again to drop the bombs. Dad and his copilot were flying their usual B-17, "Old Black Magic", and with two engines shot out they couldn't keep up with the squadron on the way back and had to drop behind. They tried to hide in the contrails left by the other planes while they limped home. A P-51 Mustang that had gotten separated from his flight spotted them and escorted them back to the Channel. Dad gave everyone the choice to bail out or land with him and they all stayed with the plane. The landing went fine and the navigator, dad, and the ground crew chief did a walkaround. They stopped counting at 300 holes in the plane varying from the size of your little finger to the size of a basketball. All four engines and both main wings had to be replaced before Old Black Magic flew again. Nobody on the crew got as much as a scratch. In fact, there were no serious injuries to anyone throughout all 37 missions. The navigator said that by the end of their tour, the whole crew had a spooky confidence in the name of the plane.