We've all read and heard about the number of missions required for a full tour of combat duty in the 8th Air Force and how it started out at twenty-five, then to thirty and eventually to thirty-five. I was surprised to learn that officially there never was a magic number set by the high command in Washington DC. Instead, they left it up to the commanders in the field to determine when their crews had had enough.

The commanding general over each Air Force set his own magic number in order to give his men a goal, hope and something to shoot for. The various Air Forces had different magic numbers and often had different numbers within the same Air Force depending on the type of plane and the nature of missions flown. But once completing the magic number of missions didn't mean a crew automatically got to go home or that they were done with the war. That would depend on the current situation at hand.

One rule Washington DC had set in stone was that no crew could go home until his replacement crew had been there for at least one month... just in case. The availabilty of replacement crews had more to do with establishing a magic number than anything else. Or perhaps I should say, in honoring the magic number.

For most of the war, the European Theater got the majority of the new replacement crews while the Pacific got what was left over. Therefore, the well-supplied 8th AF could replace their crews after twenty-five missions. But come spring of 1944, the 8th AF was told they would be getting fewer replacements so that more replacements could be sent to the Pacific. This forced the 8th AF to increase their magic number.

A lot of guys in the 8th AF complained about the increase, but imagine the guys in the Pacific. When they got done with their missions (many set at fifty) their commander would congratulate them and inform them they were now on the waitng list to go home, pending their replacement showing up. Their CO took them off the regular mission schedule, but these guys had to fly additional missions when their squadron was short-handed and on jobs that called for maximum effort. Had the 8th AF not increased their magic number this same scenario would have happened repeatedly in England, creating many a Sad Sack.

Paul Arnett 492ndBombGroup.com historian