“Wreaking Havoc – A Year in an A-20” by Joseph W Rutter

"Wreaking Havoc – A Year in an A-20"
By Joseph W Rutter
Texas A&M University Press – 2004 (2nd Printing 2012)
ISBN: 978-1-60344-737-9



I never really studied the Douglas A-20 until I began reading about the Russian Air Force in WW2. The Douglas was supplied in great numbers to the Soviets with the Lend-Lease program and that interested me enough to read up on them. I happened to stumble across this book and picked it up. The Douglas was a little hot-rod!

This book follows Joseph Rutter's life as an A-20 pilot with the 312th Bomb Group stationed in the PTO (mainly New Guinea and the Philippines) who flew 64 missions racking up 215 combat hours out of 653 hours flown. Rutter is just a regular guy stuck in a war, he shares his small victories such as finally having a cement floor in his tent (unfortunately they had to move to a new base as soon as it was finished) to the bewildering decisions made by the upper echelons such as arranging for slow bombers to fly with fast attack aircraft for a coordinated attack leading up to what could be called a "Charlie Foxtrot."

The book is 258 pages long divided into 13 Chapters and 7 various other sections including 33 pictures and 4 maps.

It was a very enjoyable, I give it 8 Parafrags.

Good stuff David. I only ever met one RAF Boston pilot, but never really got the chance to find out much about what he thought of the aircraft in the ETO.

It's on Amazon, looks like a great read. Thanks for the post.
An A-20 was flown by a Charles Davidson here in the PTO, and is in a museum, Helli Pelikan. My GB19 project plane.