How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
In the Army Air Forces, or AAF, there were 52,651 stateside aircraft accidents over the course of the war, killing 14,903 personnel. […] In the three months in which Phil's men trained as a crew, 3,041 AAF planes—more than 33 per day—met with accidents stateside, killing nine men per day. (2.6.56)
In one of the more startling statistics in the book, it seems that you were almost more likely to be killed by your own piece-of-junk plane than by a rival soldier during WWII.
Quote #5
With the dawn of 1943 and the success at Wake, the men felt cocky. It had all been so easy. One admiral predicted that Japan might be finished within the year, and Phil overheard the men talking about going home. (2.7.43)
Without the benefit of history books, it's impossible to know when the war will end. At times the men feel like it could end any day, but when the chips are down, it feels like the war will never end.
Quote #6
A lost plane, unequipped with radar, tried to find the island. "We just sat there and watched the plane pass the island, and it never came back. […] I could see it on the radar. It makes you feel terrible. Life was cheap in war." (2.8.18)
This illustrates two things: the fact that inferior technology is sometimes more deadly than combat, and the fact that watching people disappear, and being unable to do anything about it, is intensely hard to deal with.