Unbroken

Chapter 8 begins with a grisly tale of a B-24 accident that took the lives of ten men, along with Louie’s good friend, pilot Major Jonathan Coxwell. The men who survived the plane crash met their end in the water when sharks attacked them, “literally [ripping] them to pieces” (79). Hillenbrand provides more harrowing statistics of AAF deaths; only one of six losses were due to enemy action as “[a]ccidental crashes accounted for most deaths” (80).

The explanation for this statistic comes from the planes themselves. The new technology and their tendency to break down through heavy use made them incredibly risky to fly. Other factors including weather conditions, incredibly short runways and human error in the face of complex positional calculations also contributed to the grim statistics. Even if the flight crew bailed, which they had to do quickly, before crashing, surviving the water was almost impossible. Sharks appeared almost immediately, and search and rescue teams gave no hope. The planes flew mostly in radio silence, and their estimated arrival time was up to sixteen hours; rescue parties could not search at night. Searches also extended over thousands of square miles. In mid-1944, a new rescue system was implemented, equipping rescue rafts with radios and better provisions.