Originally Posted by
carl
The father of a freind was a 20mm Oerlikon gunner on a ship in the Pacific in WWII. A natural born gunner like the man said in Twelvo O'Clock High. They were under Japanese air attack and Japanese plane flew by his gun very very close heading for a nearby ship. My freind's father swung the gun to kill the pilot, did so and splashed the plane immediately. The plane was close enought to see the pilot clearly and he always felt bad about what he did, not about splashing the plane, but about aiming for the pilot instead of the engine. It didn't matter that the quickest and surest way to down the plane was to get the pilot. He still felt bad.
So I believe that Marlantes sees that and maybe his way of looking at the thing would have helped that one particular Oerlikon gunner, then or later on.
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