Memoirs Of A B 29 Pilot

Merriam Press World War 2 Review Series. From training as a pilot cadet, to bomb approach pilot, to B-17 instructor pilot, followed by training as a B-29 pilot, he and his crew operated from Guam between June and September 1945, flying 13 missions against oil targets in Japan. The book concludes with the author's personal views on how the war with Japan could have been ended without the use of the atomic bombs and without invading the Home Islands. 228 pages, 38 illustrations.

" Winner of the Best Aeronautical Book Award from the Reserve Officers Association of the United States "The sky was full of dying airplanes" as American Liberator bombers struggled to return to North Africa after their daring low-level raid on the oil refineries of Ploesti. They lost 446 airmen and 53 planes, but Philip Ardery's plane came home. This pilot was to take part in many more raids on Hitler's Europe, including air cover for the D-Day invasion of Normandy. This vivid firsthand account, available now for the first time in paper, records one man's experience of World War II air warfare. Throughout, Ardery testifies to the horror of world war as he describes his fear, his longing for home, and his grief for fallen comrades. Bomber Pilot is a moving contribution to American history.

" Winner of the Best Aeronautical Book Award from the Reserve Officers Association of the United States "The sky was full of dying airplanes" as American Liberator bombers struggled to return to North Africa after their daring low-level raid on the oil refineries of Ploesti. They lost 446 airmen and 53 planes, but Philip Ardery's plane came home. This pilot was to take part in many more raids on Hitler's Europe, including air cover for the D-Day invasion of Normandy. This vivid firsthand account, available now for the first time in paper, records one man's experience of World War II air warfare. Throughout, Ardery testifies to the horror of world war as he describes his fear, his longing for home, and his grief for fallen comrades. Bomber Pilot is a moving contribution to American history.

Wayne K. Blickenstaff, known as “Blick,” was a stalwart of the 350th Fighter Squadron of the 353rd Fighter Group based at Goxhill, Metfield and Raydon, England as part of the Eighth Air Force prosecuting the strategic air campaign against Germany. As an original cadre member, he rose steadily through the ranks from a Second Lieutenant Element Leader to Flight Leader, Squadron Operations Officer, Squadron Leader and finally to a Lieutenant Colonel and Group Operations Officer. Flying the P-47 Thunderbolt and P-51 Mustang, he completed two tours of operations between 1943 and 1945 encompassing 133 missions and claims of 10 enemy aircraft destroyed in the air. His double “ace” status included a Me262 jet fighter and the destruction of five aircraft in one mission—giving him rare “ace in a day” status. Ace in a Day is Blick’s honest and gritty personal memoir of his air war in Europe. His vivid writing places you in the cockpit as he and his comrades battle the enemy in the skies or attack ground targets across Europe. His account conveys a true sense of just how dangerous flying World War II fighters, in all weather conditions, really was. It was not just the enemy that could kill you. A moment’s inattention, overconfidence or simple mistake could be deadly. As a keen observer of character, Blick’s pen portraits of those around him, including many of those who sadly did not survive the war, offer a poignant and deeply moving tribute to those with whom he served. Anyone wanting an understanding of the dynamics of a working fighter squadron at war and the dilemmas faced by those in command should read this book. Supported by an impressive array of original documentation, photographs, and detailed appendices, including Blick’s never-before published wartime journal, Ace in a Day provides a unique and valuable insight into the harsh realities of the air war in Europe from one of the “Mighty Eighth’s” top fighter pilots.

This story was written by Herbert Brooks Hatch, Jr., one of America's living Fighter Pilot Aces from World War II. Hatch flew a P-38 with the 71st Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Group, out of Salsola, Italy. Except for a brief deployment to Corsice to cover the invasion of Southern France, he flew his 59 missions out of Foggia #3. He earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with 11 Oak Leaf Clusters. In his first book, An Ace and His Angel: Memoirs of a WWII Fighter Pilot, Hatch writes of the heroes and hardships endured by veterans of the Army Air Force.

Flying a B-17 Flying Fortress with the Fifteenth Air Force out of Foggia, Italy, Lt. George H. Neilson describes the harrowing experiences of his twenty-eight combat missions as well as the ups and downs of life in the US Army Air Corps from enlistment to discharge (1943-45). Blending selections of his father's letters to home and memoirs he recorded a half century later with documented background history, the younger Neilson tells the saga of the son of a Boston widow as he confronts the rigors of pilot-officer training and combat service in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations during the final six months of World War II in Europe. George depicts the humorous and mundane sides of army life as well as the terror-filled moments during bomb runs over targets in Austria, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, and Austria as antiaircraft flak bursts battered the aircraft. Neilson's daily chronicles juxtapose moments when life and death hung in the balance, such as when he landed his crippled Fort in the Adriatic Sea, with the unexpected moments of splendor, such as when he dined in luxury on the Isle of Capri at a castle owned by the royal family of Italy. Flying in formation through clouds so thick that the plane thirty feet off his wing was invisible, George received the Distinguished Flying Cross for his ability as a skilled instrument pilot. He recounts youthful escapades on duty-free hours and the tales of life in Foggia's mud-bound tent city in the spur of Italy. It includes the stirring story of his visit to a field hospital where his brother, a captain in the infantry, was recovering from a bullet wound incurred in the fighting in the Apennine Mountain campaign. Finally, the story tells of World War II's fiery end and how he unknowingly worked on the secret research project to develop the atomic bomb in a lab at MIT before enlistment. For the student of history and aviation and its role in the Allied victory over Hitler's nefarious Reich, this microhistory will not disappoint.