The Crew - The Skipper
It took a team to fly a bomber in WWII. Each man aboard had a job to do and veterans stress the degree to which they not only relied on one another but respected one another as professionals. But every team has a captain and in the flying world that was always the pilot. Yet it was a curiosity of the RAF that the pilot was neither always a commissioned officer nor always the most senior officer on board. Any member of the crew, advancing independently on their own merits and in their own trade, might conceivably hold a higher rank than the pilot. Thus off the aircraft, they might "out rank" their pilot, yet when onboard they were subordinate to him. This peculiarity probably explains why RAF bomber crews tended to refer to their pilot, regardless of his rank, as simply "the skipper." The skipper/pilot of the aircraft held overall responsibility for the aircraft and its crew. He was expected to make all command decisions, e.g. whether to abort a mission due to te...