The war was more than sixty years ago.

I don’t know why you dwell upon it so.

Not a single day ever goes by

But what some others of you die

Who, those days, just as you did, used to fly.

You dream about it; can’t you simply let

Those ancient mem’ries lie? Can’t you forget?

Forget? Come sit beside me for a spell.

I’ll see if there’s a way that I can tell

You why my thoughts go ever back to war

Though, as you say, it was so very far

In the past.  Imagine, if you can

That you, like me, were once a young airman

Flying in a famed B-17

O’er Europe’s rivers, towns and fields so green.

So high we fly it seems we scarcely move,                                         

We bomb by daylight; we are out to prove

For leaders who make plans to win the fight

That daylight bombing’s surer than at night.

The Brits, our allies, fly their raids at night

And leave their German targets burning bright;

But still the Yankee brass and planners say

Results of bombing are far best by day.

We near the target, and we see a puff

Of greasy black smoke. One is quite enough

To let us know the Germans lie in wait.

We wonder, flying, if ‘twill be our fate

To stop a vicious, deadly cannon shell.

Soon enough the sky becomes a hell

Of bright, red-centered puffs of smoke.

Frightened airmen grace of God invoke.

And we fly on as we must ever do

Where old flak bursts are mingled with the new

To make a dark gray cloud awaiting us,

Cloud ominous, cloud always perilous.

Most of us fly through the stuff and live

To fly again. We don’t forget to give

Thanks for our survival; but we know

That come tomorrow, back again we’ll go.

Again, again we brave the gray-black pall.

Again, again we see a comrade fall.

Again I wonder when will be my turn

To die or jump and see my airplane burn.

The song line says that airmen, live in fame

And further, end up going down in flame.

Forget, Love? Try, we might, in vain—

The fear, the horror’s graven in our brain.