Jules "Julie" Lasner volunteered for service after the United States entered World War II, and he was trained as a navigator in a B-17 Flying Fortress. Lasner flew twenty-seven missions over occupied Europe during the final phases of a strategic bombing campaign against Germany, dodging the Luftwaffe's anti-aircraft defenses in the cold, wintry skies. Based on interviews with Lasner as well as his wartime correspondence, this book offers a glimpse into his experiences as a member of the 8th Air Force. Along with thousands of others, he pounded the Third Reich around the clock in a four-engine bomber over the last eight months of the war. This account offers an insider's look into the state of the German air defenses as well as some of the effects of the strategic bomb offensive. Lasner's story shows that one person's experiences and decisions affect many people, and it also reveals how he was affected by total war. Go beyond the statistics that so often dehumanize conflict with One of Thousands.
“A compelling account of the air war against Germany” written by the navigator portrayed by Anthony Boyle in Apple TV’s Masters of the Air (Publishers Weekly). They began operations out of England in the spring of ’43. They flew their Flying Fortresses almost daily against strategic targets in Europe in the name of freedom. Their astonishing courage and appalling losses earned them the name that resounds in the annals of aerial warfare and made the “Bloody Hundredth” a legend. Harry H. Crosby—depicted in the miniseries Masters of the Air developed by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg—arrived with the very first crews, and left with the very last. After dealing with his fear and gaining in skill and confidence, he was promoted to Group Navigator, surviving hairbreadth escapes and eluding death while leading thirty-seven missions, some of them involving two thousand aircraft. Now, in a breathtaking and often humorous account, he takes us into the hearts and minds of these intrepid airmen to experience both the triumph and the white-knuckle terror of the war in the skies. “Affecting . . . A vivid account . . . Uncommonly thoughtful recollections that address the moral ambiguities of a great cause without in any way denigrating the selfless valor or camaraderie that helped ennoble it.” —Kirkus Reviews “Re-creates for us the sense of how it was when European skies were filled with noise and danger, when the fate of millions hung in the balance. An evocative and excellent memoir.” —Library Journal “The acrid stench of fear and cordite, the coal burning stoves, the heroics, the losses . . . This has to be the best memoir I have read, bar none.” —George Hicks, director of the Airmen Memorial Museum
The adventurous true stories of a WWII Navigator on a B24 Liberator Bomber flying from England on missions over Germany. The book follows the author's military training through twenty transfers and his inventive efforts to get a commission and join the Air Corps. Each time a decision was made, some of his comrades went one way and others were sent to the infantry! There is barracks humor: tricks they played on each other and on superior officers. In addition to Chapter indexes, there are indexes of his 13 "near death" experiences and of his 18 missions over Germany, listing cities and targets to be destroyed. Interspersed with his story, in bold type, is a report of what was happening in other theaters of the war. Excellent review of little known events and strategies.
As told by ace navigator Ralph Nutter, this is the story of two of our country's leading airmen during World War II: Haywood "Possum" Hansell and Curtis "the Eagle" LeMay. 24 photos. 2 maps.
During the summer of 1944, the US Eighth Air Force was engaged in a ferocious daytime bombing campaign over Europe. This book is the memoir of a B-17 navigator who found himself far from his American home, based in the English countryside of Northamptonshire. His war in the air, flying deep into enemy territory, surviving intense enemy anti-aircraft fire and enemy fighter attacks, portrays the sometimes conflicting emotions of a young man at war. The book also relates how thfriendship with their eight year-old daughter, a relationship that becomes a symbol of survival.
An author’s quest to discover what really happened to his uncle in World War II To all appearances, Anthony “Tony” Korkuc was just another casualty of World War II. A gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress, Korkuc was lost on a bombing mission over Germany, and his family believed that his body had never been recovered. But when they learned in 1995 that Tony was actually buried at Arlington National Cemetery, his nephew Bob Korkuc set out on a seven-year quest to learn the true fate of an uncle he never knew. Finding a Fallen Hero is a compelling story that blends a wartime drama with a primer on specialized research. Author Bob Korkuc initially set out to learn how his Uncle Tony came to rest at Arlington. In the process, he also unraveled the mystery of what occurred over the skies of Germany half a century ago. Korkuc dug up military documents and private letters and interviewed people in both the United States and Germany. He tracked down surviving crewmembers and even found the brother of the Luftwaffe pilot who downed the B-17. Dozens of photographs help readers envision both Tony Korkuc’s fateful flight and his nephew’s dogged search for the truth. A gripping chronicle of exhaustive research, Finding a Fallen Hero will strike a chord with any reader who has lost a family member to war. And it will inspire others to satisfy their own unanswered questions.
In this riveting account, historian Stephen Ambrose continues where he left off in his #1 bestseller D-Day. Ambrose again follows the individual characters of this noble, brutal, and tragic war, from the high command down to the ordinary soldier, drawing on hundreds of interviews to re-create the war experience with startling clarity and immediacy. From the hedgerows of Normandy to the overrunning of Germany, Ambrose tells the real story of World War II from the perspective of the men and women who fought it. From June 7, 1944, on the beaches of Normandy to the final battles of Germany, acclaimed historian Stephen E. Ambrose draws on hundreds of interviews and oral histories from men on both sides to write a compelling and comprehensive portrait of the Citizen Soldiers who made up the U.S. Army. Ambrose re-creates the experiences of the individuals who fought the battle, from high command - Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton - on down to the enlisted men. Within the chronological story, there are chapters on medics, nurses, and doctors; on the quartermasters; on the replacements; on what it was like to spend a night on the front lines; on sad sacks, cowards, and criminals; on Christmas 1944; and on weapons of all kinds. In this engrossing history, Ambrose reveals the learning process of a great army - how to cross rivers, how to fight in snow or hedgerows, how to fight in cities, how to coordinate air and ground campaigns, and how citizens become soldiers. Throughout, the perspective is that of the enlisted men and junior officers - and how decisions of the brass affected them.
Though Anglo-American air power may be unrivaled in todayÕs world, this was certainly not the case during EuropeÕs last great war. Decades ago, when our airmen flew against Germany, horrific casualties resulted on both sides, and certain battles fought by the Allied powers can be termed nothing less than calamitous. ÒBlack Thursday,Ó the second Schweinfurt raid, was the most savagely fought air battle in U.S. history, and a milestone in the course of World War II. On October 14, 1943, the U.S. Eighth Air Force launched nearly 300 bombers deep into German territory to destroy the ball-bearing plants at Schweinfurt, hoping this would bring enemy industry to a halt. On that clear, sunlit day, hundreds of German fighters raced among the unescorted B-17s, guns blazing, knocking down plane after plane, each with ten men aboard. Other German aircraft flew just outside machine-gun range of the tightly packed formations, lobbing rockets that exploded into thousands of pieces of shrapnel. U.S. bombers that split off from a formation, either wounded or disoriented, became prey for the agile packs of German fighters who would set upon them like wolves thirsty for a kill. By the end of the day, the flight path of the Flying Fortresses was marked across the breadth of Germany by towering pillars of smoke from crashed machines, fiery tributes to 600 lost airmen. W. Raymond Wood was just a child when his brother was lost in the Schweinfurt raid, and the minute details of this book is the result of his multi-year effort to illuminate ÒBlack ThursdayÓ as no writer has before. He not only reveals the experience of the American flyers in this famous battle, but that of the civilians on the ground and the enemy fighters who flew against the bomber stream, including the Me-110 pilot who in all probability destroyed his brotherÕs plane with a rocket. Illustrated with 48 pages of photos and original documents, this book examines the air war against the Third Reich, then brings the reader into the center of harrowing air combat, and finally chronicles the little-known operations after warÕs end to retrieve and identify our dead. The young navigator who sacrificed his life over Schweinfurt, after first being buried in the German village in which he fell, was at last recovered by RAF and American War Graves teams, who returned his corpse to Nebraska, where his family had anxiously awaited news of the discovery of his remains. In this book, Wood has provided not only an important work of historical research, but also the intimate account of a death in one of World War IIÕs greatest battles.
An RAF navigator’s lively, candid memoir of flying low and living fast during the Cold War years. David Herriot served almost forty years in the Royal Air Force as a navigator, first on the Buccaneer S2 and subsequently on the Tornado GR1. This volume recounts his early career operating the Buccaneer on three operational flying tours, plus a tour as an instructor on the Operational Conversion Unit. With almost 2500 hours on an aircraft that was operated at high speed, in all weathers and at ultra-low level, his task in the rear seat was a demanding one. But Herriot was more than just the guy in the back of a Buccaneer; he was, quite routinely, and often to the exasperation of his seniors, the life and soul of any party that was taking place either at home base or when overseas defending the flanks of NATO. This is an epic adventure for the aviation enthusiast, particularly those with affection for the Blackburn Buccaneer, and it provides a great deal more than the usual introduction to a specific aircraft type and the people who flew it. Here you’ll find an absolute insight into life on a fast-jet squadron, at work and mischievous play during the Cold War—and you’ll also be introduced to some of the modern RAF’s greatest characters.
