Great day at work, 'Aluminum Overcast' is on our ramp today giving rides. Four Curtiss-Wright R-1820 Cyclones turning money and avgas into a glorious noise. The sobering thing to remember this Memorial Day is ten crewman flew in this, unpressurized, unheated airplane at 25,000 to 30,000 feet facing fighters, flak and frostbite in daylight raids over Germany. Half of the U.S. Army Air Force's casualties in World War II were suffered by Eighth Air Force (more than 47,000 casualties, with more than 26,000 dead). A Marine Corps infantryman in the Pacific had better odds.