Flying Fortress Gunner

Flying Fortress Gunner
Author: Bill Cullen
Publisher: Schiffer + ORM
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2023-10-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1507303319

The biography of Bob Harper, a B-17 ball turret gunner with the 8th Air Force who survived 35 combat missions over Germany in WWII, and was shot down twice. At 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighing just 110 pounds, Bob Harper was below the minimum size requirements for US military service. As the demand for manpower increased, rules were bent, Harper’s deferment was retracted, and he was drafted into the Army. Harper was deployed to the European front and survived 35 combat missions as a B-17 ball turret gunner. Based at airfields in England, Bob and the 381st Bomb Group flew brutal missions over heavily defended industrial centers in Germany. Harper was shot down twice and awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Through his letters home, combat reports, and extensive interviews with author Bill Cullen, Harper describes his harrowing experiences on board the Flying Fortresses of the Eighth Air Force. Cullen’s interviews with Harper took place over a period of years, and it is the anecdotes from the interviews that drive the majority of the narrative. The ball turret was located underneath the aircraft and was a confined, intense, and unique environment from which to experience combat during the Second World War. Readers will find Harper, who went on to a successful business career after the war, to be an insightful, witty, and engaging storyteller.

B-17 Gunner

B-17 Gunner
Author: Craig A. Kleinsmith
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2020-07-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 1476683298

For three years, Staff Sergeant Charles M. Eyer served as a B-17 ball turret gunner over Europe during World War II. Based in part on a secret journal he kept as a prisoner of war, this book records Eyer's firsthand account of his harrowing 59 combat missions (B-17 crewmen could not expect to survive 10), his escape from a burning B-17 deep inside Germany, the horrors of confinement in a Nazi POW camp, and his survival of an 80-day forced march during the brutal winter of 1944-45.

B-17 Bomber Crew Diary

B-17 Bomber Crew Diary
Author: Edward J. Giering
Publisher:
Total Pages: 142
Release: 1985-01-01
Genre: World War, 1939-1945
ISBN: 9780897450690

The Belly Gunner

The Belly Gunner
Author: Dale Aldrich
Publisher: Twenty-First Century Books
Total Pages: 172
Release: 2001-01-01
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 9780761318736

Presents the experiences and memories of Dale Aldrich, an American ball turret gunner in World War II, from the day he was drafted through his release from a German POW camp to the end of the war.

Finding a Fallen Hero

Finding a Fallen Hero
Author: Bob Korkuc
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780806138923

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.

Under the Tulip Tree

Under the Tulip Tree
Author: Michelle Shocklee
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2020
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1496446070

Sixteen-year-old Lorena Leland's dreams of a rich and fulfilling life as a writer are dashed when the stock market crashes in 1929. Seven years into the Great Depression, Rena's banker father has retreated into the bottle, her sister is married to a lazy charlatan and gambler, and Rena is an unemployed newspaper reporter. Eager for any writing job, Rena accepts a position interviewing former slaves for the Federal Writers' Project. There, she meets Frankie Washington, a 101-year-old woman whose honest yet tragic past captivates Rena. As Frankie recounts her life as a slave, Rena is horrified to learn of all the older woman has endured--especially because Rena's ancestors owned slaves. While Frankie's story challenges Rena's preconceptions about slavery, it also connects the two women whose lives are otherwise separated by age, race, and circumstances. But will this bond of respect, admiration, and friendship be broken by a revelation neither woman sees coming?

Tailspin

Tailspin
Author: John Armbruster
Publisher: Ten16 Press
Total Pages: 422
Release: 2022-04-30
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781645383147

A rookie social studies teacher overhears a conversation about a World War II tail gunner who survived a four-mile fall from the sky. When the elderly Gene Moran finally shares his saga, John has no idea of the wounds he's reopening.

No Man’S Sky

No Man’S Sky
Author: R. C. Cline
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Total Pages: 482
Release: 2015-07-22
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1496928954

In the fall of 1942, the first year of the war was ending. For young men in Bloomville (Ohio) Township High Schools senior class, school was the last opportunity to be free before graduation, adult responsibility, and manhood. For them and many other young men across the nation, war was about to become a reality, including J. Emerson Krieger. Life was about to turn in a new, dramatic, and uncharted direction. No Mans Sky, by author R.C. Cline, narrates the story of Krieger, a combat flier in World War II. An aerial gunner, he protected his crew and plane with a Browning M-2 machine gun while flying twenty-nine perilous missions over the embattled skies of Germany. Through diaries, letters, photos, and personal records, this memoir chronicles Kriegers service as a waist gunner, the youngest man in his crew. Offering insight into the challenges of war and combat during World War II, No Mans Sky shares the story of Staff Sergeant Krieger and what life was like six miles in the sky in a B-17 bomber. It pays tribute to all of the men and women who have served our country.

B-17 Flying Fortress Units of the MTO

B-17 Flying Fortress Units of the MTO
Author: William N Hess
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2012-12-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 1782008373

Having been a part of the Fifteenth Air Force in 1944, author Bill Hess has written the definitive account on 'his air force', featuring photographs and illustrations throughout. Although the Fifteenth Air Force was dismissed as 'minor leaguers' by the Eighth Air Force, strategic bombers from this outfit had done a 'major league' job on Axis targets in southern Europe following its formation in Italy in November 1943. And the heavy bombers employed by the Fifteenth were of course the venerable B-17 and B-24. At its peak strength, the Fifteenth's B-17 force comprised six groups of four squadrons each, all controlled by the 5th Bomb Wing.