For the past several months, Kenney had watched with guarded amusement as his two veteran heavy bomb groups, the 43rd and the 90th, competed with each other. Eventually the competition degenerated into a full-blown dispute, later coined “The Big Feud” by a correspondent for Yank magazine.The rivalry was inevitable. Virtually all military units are highly competitive. Within every branch of service, an almost compulsive need exists to demonstrate superiority over all challengers—both friends and foes. In aviation communities, the competition becomes especially fierce at the group and squadron levels, and even among individual pilots. Everyone wants to prove who’s best, whether the benchmark is flying, shooting, bombing, or some other skill set. When two or more units compete, there is no reward for second-best.In the Fifth Air Force (not counting the 380th Bomb Group, which was too new), the competition between the heavies was simple: the 43rd Group flew B-17s, while the 90th operated B-24s.
