Freeman Dyson performed the same analysis in the UK by charting the holes in returning Lancaster bombers. He correctly showed that by placing a relatively small piece of armor underneath the pilot & co-pilot, survivability of these aircraft would be dramatically increased at the cost of almost no additional weight.

As for survivorship bias, with our simple ape-brains we humans are perpetually duped by best-seller nonsense that relies on this phenomenon. In Search Of Excellence was a notable example, as is every hagiographic account of some entrepreneur, sports personality, or long-lived geriatric. Although all of these accounts are worthless, the public laps them up insatiably.