vikingBerserker
Lieutenant General
"A Higher Call"
By Adam Makos with Larry Alexander
Berkley Publishing Group – 2013
ISBN: 978-0-425-25286-4
Imagine you are returning from your first mission bombing Germany. You had just watched another B-17 flying with you explode and the 5 Bf 109s that caused it are now attacking you. You power dive 19,000 feet and manage to escape your attackers but you are in sad shape. As your plane is slowly losing altitude heading towards home you take stock in your situation. You are down to one operating machine gun. Your tail gunner is dead, his faced removed with several 20mm shells. Another gunner is out with a leg barely attached. The radio operator's radio has exploded sending fragments into his face, blood trickling from an eye and his hands frost bitten. Other crew members are wounded and you yourself have been hit in the shoulder. The left stabilizer is gone, hydraulics are bleeding, the nose has been blown off and there are holes in the fuselage big enough to crawl through. You have 1 good engine, 2 rough ones, and 1 dead making your top speed 135 mph, just above the stall speed. Now you are about to enter one of the heaviest flak zones in Germany.
How can this get any worse?
At the moment you look out of your window into the eyes of a Luftwaffe pilot flying right next to you.
"Oh <bleep>!"
This book was published this past January (2013) and tells the story of a B-17 pilot 2Lt Charlie Brown and a Luftwaffe Fighter pilot 2Lt Franz Stigler, their first meeting in 1943 and their 2nd in 1990. The book is 387 pages long divided into 25 Chapters with 82 pictures. A number of the elite Luftwaffe fighter pilots are featured as Lt Stigler ended the war flying with JV 44. I will warn you however the German's calling the P-38 the Forked Tail Devil is in the book, but I am not sure if that is from the author or from one of the pilots he interviewed. Regardless this was an excellent read.
I have to give it 10 Salutes to both pilots!
By Adam Makos with Larry Alexander
Berkley Publishing Group – 2013
ISBN: 978-0-425-25286-4
Imagine you are returning from your first mission bombing Germany. You had just watched another B-17 flying with you explode and the 5 Bf 109s that caused it are now attacking you. You power dive 19,000 feet and manage to escape your attackers but you are in sad shape. As your plane is slowly losing altitude heading towards home you take stock in your situation. You are down to one operating machine gun. Your tail gunner is dead, his faced removed with several 20mm shells. Another gunner is out with a leg barely attached. The radio operator's radio has exploded sending fragments into his face, blood trickling from an eye and his hands frost bitten. Other crew members are wounded and you yourself have been hit in the shoulder. The left stabilizer is gone, hydraulics are bleeding, the nose has been blown off and there are holes in the fuselage big enough to crawl through. You have 1 good engine, 2 rough ones, and 1 dead making your top speed 135 mph, just above the stall speed. Now you are about to enter one of the heaviest flak zones in Germany.
How can this get any worse?
At the moment you look out of your window into the eyes of a Luftwaffe pilot flying right next to you.
"Oh <bleep>!"
This book was published this past January (2013) and tells the story of a B-17 pilot 2Lt Charlie Brown and a Luftwaffe Fighter pilot 2Lt Franz Stigler, their first meeting in 1943 and their 2nd in 1990. The book is 387 pages long divided into 25 Chapters with 82 pictures. A number of the elite Luftwaffe fighter pilots are featured as Lt Stigler ended the war flying with JV 44. I will warn you however the German's calling the P-38 the Forked Tail Devil is in the book, but I am not sure if that is from the author or from one of the pilots he interviewed. Regardless this was an excellent read.
I have to give it 10 Salutes to both pilots!
