U.S.A.A.F. Heavy Bomber Crewman with Body Armor, 1944-45

The armor this airman wears was one of the war's great life-savers, and it came from a doctor's simple observation. Colonel Malcolm Grow, the Eighth Air Force's chief surgeon, studied the wounds coming back in his bombers and realized that most were caused not by cannon shells but by small, spent fragments of anti-aircraft shell — "flak" — travelling slowly enough that a little armor could stop them. Working with the Wilkinson Sword company in England, he devised a vest of overlapping steel plates sewn into canvas: the flak suit, introduced in 1943. Paired with a steel flak helmet, it cut crew casualties sharply and earned Grow a decoration. It was heavy and awkward, but airmen were very glad to have it. The crewman stands in the bulky canvas-and-steel flak suit, a steel flak helmet held in one hand and his leather flying helmet still on his head — the layered protection of a man who flew through curtains of exploding shell. He belongs with the rest of the crew: pair him with the Crewman in the B-2 Flying Cap and the Ball Turret Gunner, and — for the other side of the story — the very weapon his armor was built to defend against, the German 88mm Flak gun throwing up the fragments from below. In a diorama the flak suit tells the whole grim arithmetic of the bomber war in one garment. W. Britain model 10215. 1/30 scale, matte-painted metal. Single figure — a USAAF heavy bomber crewman wearing a flak suit and holding a steel flak helmet. Boxed.