I’ve always been fascinated by B-17 bombers from WWII for some strange reason; yet I was born after the war & would not have heard about those Flying Fortresses for another 10 years, maybe. Still, I’m attracted to a B-17 heavy bomber, like a moth to a flame, or a skinny kid to a big magnet & I don’t know why.
I recently decided to start reading some books about the (10) crewmen who flew in B-17s in WWII & maybe see where that might take me, in my research about my uncanny fascination. I’ve also written a book review of one or more of those books & posted them online, at Amazon & Goodreads (access both sites from my About page).
I also put together a Newsletter w/regard to more than a few books about B-17s & I eventually found more than 125 books! But there’s still so many more out there I haven’t discovered yet!
Just click on the picture of snow-capped mountains below, to browse my Newsletter about B-17s.
I’m sure you’ll find at least one book, to pique your interest in the plane, aka heavy bomber, some historians say won the war!
So far, I’ve read 4 >
An Innocent at Polebrook – A Memoir of an 8th Air Force Bombardier
By Charles N. Stevens
‘Like the letter home he could never write, until now!
Charles was almost 80-years-old when he wrote his Memoir, some 60 years after the fact about his hazardous flight duty in WWII. Still, just like it was yesterday!
Charles flew 34 missions as a Bombardier, in the nose of a B-17 bomber over enemy territory in both France & Germany from Polebrook, England, in the summer of 1944. Luckily, he survived the war, to live a long & healthy life, thankfully.
While, almost 2,000 guys were lost in more than 300 missions from Polebrook between 1943-1945, as Charles wrote; “During my tour of duty, from June 14 to September 22, 1944, the 8th Air Force lost 810 heavy bombers, 495 B-17s & 315 B-24s. During the same period, we lost 31 planes from our field at Polebrook. On a single day, September 12th 1944, the 8th Air Force lost 35 planes, most of them B-17s, on the raid to Ruhland, Germany, 6 of those belong to our group.”’ ...
Combat Crew
By John Comer
‘ “How often the timing of a trivial incident shapes our lives.”
Or, something as simple as remembering your sunglasses, as the pilot ordered his gunners to put on their sunglasses & watch the area around the sun, because that’s where the enemy fighters initiated their surprise attacks on an unsuspecting bomber crew.
On their first mission to Schweinfurt on 17 August 1943, “the 381st lost 11 out of 24 aircraft & one plane aborted, the highest loss of any group”. A total of 60 B-17s were shot down that day! I was stunned to imagine that 60 bombers fell out of the sky in one day, with 10 guys in every plane; or 600 men either dead or captured by the Germans, or hopefully befriended by the Resistance & secreted back to England, somehow, to fly another mission, one day!’ ...
Serenade to the Big Bird
By Bert Stiles
' “It was summer & there was war all over the world.”
A matter-of-fact line at the start of the remarkably humble & dramatic book, Serenade to the Big Bird by Bert Stiles, about his brief but stressful career as a co-pilot in a B-17 bomber during WWII, albeit for less than a year, but what a hectic year!
“All I knew about war I got through books and movies and magazine articles.... It wasn’t in my blood, it was all in my mind.”
I was moved by Bert’s spare & honest writing style, like a confessional letter he might have written home to his Dad, to spare his Mom from any heartache. Incredible that he could still write under such traumatic conditions while flying 2 to 3 missions per week, usually on consecutive days. And not knowing whether he’d ever come back to home base, again, dead or alive. In 1944, Bert was stationed in England & assigned to the 401st Bomb Squadron, 91st Bomb Group at Bassingbourn in Cambridgeshire, about 4 miles from the small town of Royston.
I can’t imagine his stress levels compounded by the lack of sufficient sleep, which might have only been alleviated by his habitual need to write, in a serious attempt to understand the world at war.’ ...
A Higher Call
By Adam Makos
‘ “You fight by rules to keep your humanity.”
A comment made by a German air squad leader, to his new fighter pilot recruit. Still, the directive sounds almost like an oxymoron, because fighting in combat is the obvious opposite of ‘goodwill toward men’ & thus, for humanity to live in peace. But I know what he meant, to impart some portion of compassion to the inexperienced & young pilot, that mutual respect & civility are the better parts of valor, in both combat & noncombatant situations. A tagline & precursor of what was yet to come in this remarkable story about a soldier who is faced with what his higher conscious would rather have him consider, like chivalry, instead of constant combat in a senseless conflict, in WWII.
I thoroughly enjoyed the (2012) book, A Higher Call by Adam Makos. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t put it down, until I had finished reading the entire book, as fast as I could, because I wanted to understand the reasons why the German fighter pilot could change his mind in the middle of an aerial dogfight. Sympathetically, there was no actual ‘middle’ of his conflict, rather a buildup of considerations which culminated in an action that manifested of its own volition, apparently.’ ...
Checkout my Newsletter of books about B-17s in WWII > just click on the photo above of the aerial view of snow-capped mountains, much like what the guys on a B-17 might have seen on any bombing mission.
I'm also including my research notes w/regard to all the guys who died in WWII from Danvers, MA, USA. A small town in Essex County, where I originally started my search for B-17s because my Grandmother's Grandmother was born in Danvers, in 1865 (after the end of the American Civil War) & I wanted to find some other connection w/regard to WWII within my family tree. Just click the photo below of blurry people, to access my research notes, as a work-in-progress (for me or anyone else).
Thanks for stopping by to read my book blog!
Captain Jack