After emailing and calling cousins, nieces and nephews, I also made a call to our good friend "Joe", and at the risk of sending some board members into another frenzy, I'll share an interesting remembrance of the WWII days from him...
On this call, Joe remembered a training flight with my Dad in Oklahoma…on this particular flight the group’s lead pilot was very “insistent” that all other 11 pilots “tighten up” the formation and he kept pushing and pushing them to get ever closer together (recall that Joe was the Radio Operator and could hear all the inter-ship chatter)…well, before too long the whole crew of my Dad’s ship were shocked to hear and feel a very rapid “Bang!…Bang!…Bang!…Bang!…throughout the plane…turns out that my Dad had “tightened up” so much that one of the outboard engine’s (#1 or #4) propellers were starting to chop off the tail guns of a sister-ship! 😲…of course they backed off, but surprisingly nothing was ever documented about the incident according to Joe…equally surprising, Dad never mentioned it 😉...fun times...now, for those who just have to nitpick, this is a physical possibility and it wouldn't be the first time aircraft in close formation came together...in fact an awful lot of B-17s crashed together in WWII over England just trying to 'form up'.
Here's hoping that all our Veterans have less 'striking' remembrances of their service.