Bravest of the Brave book series - USAF MoH recipients

[zeamerseagerbeavers]

Seems fitting on Memorial Day weekend to be able to finally bring attention to the herculean efforts of an excellent author and very good friend of mine, MSgt. Joseph Bowman.

For thirty years, Joe's been working on what's turning out to be a three-volume series of comprehensive biographies of all 62 USAF Medal of Honor recipients. Unlike other books in this line, these aren't one-paragraph summaries with the MoH citation. These are comprehensive, objective, birth-to-death biographies, as accurate as interviews and the most current archival research allows, and well beyond. (He just got a 500+ page file on one of the Ploesti recipients that he's updating that section with.) He's already received some wonderful reviews from some MoH recipients' family members—and one recipient himself likely famous around these parts: Lt. Col. Jay Zeamer Jr., who wrote the foreword—and are expecting more.

As manager of my dad's tiny publishing company—mostly for his paperback books and a few selected others—we initially told Joe he'd need a traditional publisher for this one (we did publish his last book). But after editing the chapters of the first volume for him, I told Dad we needed to do this. Being an 88-year-old private/corporate pilot and WWII warbird enthusiast himself, he heartily agreed.

So we're beyond proud to be bringing Joe's series, Bravest of the Brave, to life. We're shooting for Volume 1 to be available sometime in August.

Here is the link to Volume 1's page on Dad's publishing website, Del Hayes Press, with all the information on the book, reviews, plus a sample interior including the full chapter on WWI recipients Bleckley and Goettler.

If after you've taken all that in, you're interested in updates for Volume 1, please consider signing up at the bottom of the page!

(As I say on the form, don't worry about us spamming you about it. This is just me and Dad, and mostly me. We have zero desire or time to do that; this would be only important updates. For those wondering, that's also why we're not publishing anyone else for the foreseeable future.)

 

[Barrett]

The subject caught my attention because in 2001 my (then) complete book of the aviation Medals of Honor was published by now-defunct Smithsonian Press. Here's the Amazon link:

Amazon.com

The late Joe Foss provided the foreword--the last thing he wrote for publication.

Some of my entries required additional research as to what actually happened--and if the events happened at all (a couple remain disputed). Lindbergh's medal was undeserved because the army medal required combat action, and he was a civilian flying a civilian airplane. Besides that, he already had received the first (?) Distinguished Flying Cross. Which in no way detracts from the skill and courage that his solo TransLant demonstrated. But the euphoria attending his fame swept aside any objectivity.

I wrote another MoH book covering the US Army non-aviation recipients, titled Heroes (2006). Some of the same factors arose as in the aviation volume: uncertainty as to where or if some actions occurred. The process has been political since the MoH was inaugurated in 1861 (both Roosevelts are a case in point) and unfortunately it remains so today. That's the nature of the endeavor, but the recipients I've known (only two remain) are unanimous: "The real heroes never came back."

 

[zeamerseagerbeavers]

Barrett,

I'm familiar with your first one; I believe Joe owns it. He reports it as an excellent volume and contribution to the genre. Another similarly themed book came out around 2011, and was reprinted in 2016. Alan Durkota has a similar series that he began in the late '90s; he's actually been a resource for Joe in this one.

I know Joe has come across some of the same issues you describe. I'm enjoying his respectful but admirably objective perspective on his subjects. He's of the same opinion as you re: Lindbergh, and as I recall discusses that aspect in his bio of Lucky Lindy. Ditto how politically fraught the process is. LBJ, anyone?

We're all obviously limited by the people and materials available to us at the time, and the questions we know to ask. Just in my research of Zeamer's Eager Beavers, I've wished so many times that I'd known earlier the questions I needed answered later. But every year the diligent researchers among us keep finding datapoints that, through the beauty of the Internet, we can put together. Just on this crew's side, we now know not only what twin-engine fighter engaged them on the 16 June 43 mission, but who was flying it. I've even been able to piece together the exact mission that Zeamer's friend Walt Krell reported him falling asleep on going into the bombing run.

In Joe's case, he's lucky that he started so early, while a number of the recipients were still alive (one still is!), but in continuing on, is getting to benefit from all the Internet has provided over the past twenty years. It seems miraculous at times. Those he talked to personally did echo the same sentiment as yours: they didn't consider themselves heroes, and felt the real ones were those who never returned.

We hope his series will prompt a new round of interest in these recipients, the famous and the forgotten, and their own heroic actions. It's definitely an uphill climb—if not an Everest, certainly a McKinley—doing it on our own. We're doing paperback versions, but the subject demands the nice hardcovers as well, and limited print runs for those are NOT cheap. But we're knocking on doors and trying to spread the word for his and their sakes. We'll see what happens!