Half a Wing, Three Engines and a Prayer

Half a Wing, Three Engines and a Prayer
Author: Brian D. O'Neill
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
Total Pages: 480
Release: 1999-05-21
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0071640657

Incorporating a wealth of new material, here is the riveting story of the bombing raids that broke the back of Nazi Germany, praised as "a well-researched, highly readable account of a B-17 combat crew's experience ... excellent." (Roger A. Freeman, author of The Mighty Eighth)

The Star in the Window

The Star in the Window
Author: Louis C. Langone
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2011-06-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 1462014275

When a service banner adorned with stars was displayed in a homes window during World War II, it meant a family member was involved in the war. Some of the soldiers never returned, but those who did come home carried memories and war stories. In The Star in the Window, author Louis C. Langone tells the stories of more than seventy-five WWII veterans who lived in Waterville and Central New York. Langone personally interviewed and listened to more than 100 men and women telling their wartime storiesfrom bombing missions over Europe to the island hopping campaigns of the Pacific to suffering as prisoners of war. The narratives are supplemented with material from books, periodicals, the Internet, press releases, unit histories, and letters, providing a mix of memories and facts. Photographs and community honor rolls are also included. The Star in the Window not only preserves special WWII memories, but also gives insight into the hardships endured and sacrifices made by the veterans of the Central New York area. It provides an opportunity to experience history through the eyes and ears of veterans from the various military branches of service revealing shocking and obscure incidents of the war.

To Kingdom Come

To Kingdom Come
Author: Robert J. Mrazek
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2011-03-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1101475927

The breathtaking, never-before-told, true story of a historic air force bombing mission in 1943 Germany. On September 6, 1943, three hundred and thirty-eight B-17 "Flying Fortresses" of the American Eighth Air Force took off from England, bound for Stuttgart, Germany, to bomb Nazi weapons factories. Dense clouds obscured the targets, and one commander's critical decision to circle three times over the city—and its deadly flak—would prove disastrous. Forty-five planes went down that day, and hundreds of men were lost or missing. Focusing on first-person accounts of six of the B-17 airmen, award-winning author Robert Mrazek vividly re-creates the fierce air battle—and reveals the astonishing valor of the airmen who survived being shot down, and the tragic fate of those who did not.

American Bomber Crewman 1941–45

American Bomber Crewman 1941–45
Author: Gregory Fremont-Barnes
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 66
Release: 2012-06-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 1782000569

Gregory Fremont-Barnes examines the lives of the American Bomber Crewmen of the Eighth Air Force, 'The Mighty Eighth', who manned, maintained and repaired the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses and the B-24 Liberators that flew from the airfields of England. He highlights the physical and psychological strain placed on these men, who required brute strength to control the aircraft on long bombing missions and extraordinary endurance to fly for hours at 20,000 feet at temperatures below freezing in unpressurised cabins. In addition to this, with Luftwaffe fighters and anti-aircraft fire to contend with, it required incredible skill and some luck to return from a mission unscathed. This book is a fitting tribute to these often uncelebrated heroes who took the war deep into the Third Reich, as well as a fascinating historical account of their experiences.

Hell Above Earth

Hell Above Earth
Author: Stephen Frater
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2012-03-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1429956828

"After the twists and turns in Goering's many missions, Frater finishes with a stunning revelation . . . the author delivers an exciting read full of little-known facts about the war. A WWII thrill ride." - Kirkus Reviews The U.S. air battle over Nazi Germany in WWII was hell above earth. For bomber crews, every day they flew was like D-Day, exacting a terrible physical and emotional toll. Twenty-year-old U.S. Captain Werner Goering, accepted this, even thrived on and welcomed the adrenaline rush. He was an exceptional pilot—and the nephew of Hermann Göring, leading member of the Nazi party and commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe. The FBI and the American military would not prevent Werner from serving his American homeland, but neither would they risk the propaganda coup that his desertion or capture would represent for Nazi Germany. J. Edgar Hoover issued a top-secret order that if Captain Goering's plane was downed for any reason over Nazi-occupied Europe, someone would be there in the cockpit to shoot Goering dead. FBI agents found a man capable of accomplishing the task in Jack Rencher, a tough, insular B-17 instructor who also happened to be one of the Army's best pistol shots. That Jack and Werner became unlikely friends is just one more twist in one of the most incredible untold tales of WWII.

They came from Burgundy

They came from Burgundy
Author: Keith Janes
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 512
Release: 2017-03-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1788036476

The first book to recount the stories of every single Allied serviceman (including more than a hundred and fifty American aircrew) helped by one of the major escape lines of World War Two, complete with details of their helpers. Escape lines – which should more properly be called evasion lines – can be described as organisations that helped stranded servicemen make their way from enemy occupied territories back to friendly territory. Of the three major escape lines running through France during the Second World War – the Pat O’Leary line, which covered most of the country, the Comete line, which ran from Holland and Belgium through France to the Pyrenees, and Bourgogne – Bourgogne (aka Burgundy) is the least well known. Escape lines are a largely unrecognised, or at least often overlooked, episode of the Second World War. For those who were involved – the helpers (mostly French, Belgian and Dutch civilians) – or who benefitted from them (mostly British, Commonwealth and American servicemen) this was a personal war, which was, and remains, almost unknown to the outside world, despite the tragic loss of so many of those concerned. To the families of the servicemen saved, it must have seemed like a miracle to have their loved ones returned safely to them. For the helpers and their families who were caught, it often meant death. This comprehensive study, some 480 pages, is based around contemporary reports and documentation, as well as extensive personal research by the author and others. It describes the evasions of the more than three hundred Allied servicemen helped by the Burgundy line, together with details and the eventual fates of many hundreds of their helpers. They came from Burgundywill appeal to those interested in history, specifically Second World War escape and evasion.

The Girl in the Blue Beret

The Girl in the Blue Beret
Author: Bobbie Ann Mason
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2012-07-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0812978870

Inspired by the wartime experiences of her father-in-law, Bobbie Ann Mason has crafted the haunting and profoundly moving story of an American World War II pilot shot down in Occupied Europe, and his wrenching odyssey of discovery, decades later, as he uncovers the truth about those who helped him escape in 1944. At twenty-three, Marshall Stone was a confident, cocksure U.S. flyboy stationed in England, with several bombing raids in a B-17 under his belt. But when enemy fighters forced his plane to crash-land in a Belgian field during a mission to Germany, Marshall had to rely solely on the kindness of ordinary Belgian and French citizens to help him hide from and evade the Nazis. Decades later, restless and at the end of his career as an airline pilot, Marshall returns to the crash site and finds himself drawn back in time, unable to stop thinking about the people who risked their lives to save Allied pilots like him. Most of all, he is obsessed by the girl in the blue beret, a courageous young woman who protected and guided him in occupied Paris. Framed in spellbinding, luminous prose, Marshall’s search for her gradually unfolds, becoming a voyage of discovery that reveals truths about himself and the people he knew during the war. Deeply beautiful and impossible to put down, The Girl in the Blue Beret is an unforgettable story—intimate, affecting, exquisite—of memories, second chances, and one intrepid girl who risked it all for a stranger.