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In 1941, sixteen-year-old Emma Bellerose and her family are nearly killed while escaping Saint-Nazaire, France, targeted for destruction by the Nazi regime. The Bellerose family finds refuge in an abandoned church with other families left homeless and destitute by the devastation. Two years later, they continue to make do in their makeshift shelter. Meanwhile, nineteen-year-old Bill McLaughton, a US military waist gunner, has a persistent nightmare, one that he can’t figure out. He has been assigned to an RAF bomber base in Polebrook, England, and although Bill has had a rather uninteresting life, that is all about to change. When his plane is shot down over the French countryside, the Bellerose family finds him and takes him to safety. As they nurse him back to health, Bill and Emma soon find themselves falling in love. But with the war, anything can happen—and Bill’s nightmare becomes more and more ominous. Only time will tell whether they can find peace and happiness together. In this historical novel, a US airman in World War II plagued by nightmares is shot down over France, where he meets a young woman who changes his life forever.
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.
Through Patterson's remarkable photography and Nijboer's interviews with veterans, "Gunner" allows readers to imagine what it must have been like to be an air gunner in the Second World War. 150 color photos plus historical b&w photos.
World War II from a Waist Gunner's View of Stalag 17 by Staff Sergeant Luther Irwin Kelley Pdf
War, guns, bombs and waist gunners—far removed from the small town of Fowler, Colorado, population about 1200, twenty-eight miles east of Pueblo, Colorado on Highway 50. I lived there with my Dad, Ray, who was Pastor of the Second Baptist church, my Mom, Florence, grandmother, Dora Kelley; older brother Fred, who went into the Army a year before I did, and my sister Lorene. Germany, with the leadership of Hitler had overrun several small countries—the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Austria; as well as the war with Russia and England, incarcerating all the Jews as he went along. The United States was furnishing England with food and all types of war supplies. Then a state of shock fell upon our country and our small town of Fowler when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. On December 8, 1941, our government declared war on Japan. On December 11, 1941, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States and we in turn declared war on Germany the same day.
Waist Gunner by William Davis Parker,S. Sidney Ulmer Pdf
This book tells the story of William Davis Parker, a Radio Operator/Waist-Gunner on a B-24 heavy bomber in World War II. Stationed in the Southwest Pacific, his story is told through an almost day to day diary that he kept in the period March 1943 to February 1945. The early pages in the diary sketch in some detail the training phase during which Parker evolved from a young cadet in pilot training to a disciplined and skilled Radio Operator/Gunner. Here we experience with Parker his daily frustrations and disappointments, his ups and downs, the environment in which this training took place -- as well as the few simple pleasures that airmen-trainees enjoyed in the early 1940s. The major portion of the diary is devoted to a nine-month period from May 1944 to February 1945. In that time span, Parker was assigned to a B-24 crew in the 394th Bomb Squadron, 5th Bomb Group, in the 13th Air Force. He was stationed at various times throughout the Southwest Pacific. His combat missions were flown from such places as Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, Los Negros in the Admiralty Islands, Wakde and Noemfoor in New Guinea, and Morotai in the Netherlands East Indies. Targets bombed included such Japanese airfields and installations as those on Truk, Yap, Woleai, and others in New Guinea, Borneo and the Philippines. Waste Gunner also includes three papers by Ulmer, which flush out some of the stories in Parker's diary. " The Cisco Kid in World War II" focuses on one 5th Group B-24, the crew that flew it overseas, and the adventures of that crew during their combat tour. This paper provides a detailed understanding of the conditions of life in the Pacific during World War II. But it also reveals the spirit of airmen under very harsh conditions--a spirit that never wavered and had much to do with the success of our forces in that theater of war. The second paper, "A Tough Month for the 5th Group, November, 1944" briefly summarizes all the missions flown by the 5th group in November but focuses specifically on two that Ulmer flew, one on November 7th and one on November 16th. Parker also flew the November 7th strike. This paper provides considerable detail on that mission from official Mission Reports that were not available to Parker as he composed his diary. The third paper,"Balikpapan, The 5th Group's Shining Hour", is devoted to a single mission, one flown against Japanese oil refineries at Balikpapan, Borneo on September 30,1944. That strike is generally viewed as the most important mission flown by the 5th Group during World War II.It significantly reduced the ability of the Japanese to produce refined petroleum products for use in their Philippines campaign. It is thought to have saved many lives later and was of great assistance to MacArthur in his campaign to recapture the Philippines. Parker flew this mission but in his diary, he does not adequately describe the mission and its consequences for his crew. The deficiency may be due to the fact that returning from the target his plane crash-landed on an island 400 miles from base, earning him a purple heart and delaying his return for a week. The Balikpapan paper provides many more details about the planning and execution of this mission. A strong feature of the diary is the detailed account Parker gives for each of the 28 missions he flew during his combat period. These accounts provide an excellent picture of just what was taking place in Parker's plane while subject to intense flak and Japanese fighter attack. He tells us about the fear, joy, hubris, and other characteristics of the men in his crew (and other crews) under combat conditions. He also keeps us well-informed about life on the ground -- the frequent Japanese bombing raids on his bases, how air crewmen spent their time when not on a mission, and the interaction of
LIBERTY LADY is the true story of a WWII bomber and its crew forced to land in neutral Sweden during the Eighth Air Force's first large-scale daylight bombing raid on Berlin. 1st Lt. Herman Allen was interned and began working for his country's espionage agency, the OSS, with instructions to befriend a businessman suspected of selling secrets to the Germans. Soon Herman fell in love with a beautiful Swedish-American secretary working for the OSS, their courtship unfolding amid the glamour and intrigue of wartime Stockholm. As Swedish newspapers trumpeted one of the biggest spy scandals of the war, two of the main protagonists walked down the aisle in a storybook wedding presided over by the nephew of the King of Sweden.
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.
Through Patterson's remarkable photography and Nijboer's interviews with veterans, "Gunner" allows readers to imagine what it must have been like to be an air gunner in the Second World War. 150 color photos plus historical b&w photos.
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Black Thursday: The Story of the Schweinfurt Raid by Martin Caidin Pdf
Martin Caidin's Black Thursday: The Story of the Schweinfurt Raid tells of the United States Air Force's massive bombing raid into Nazi Germany's industrial heartland on Thursday, October 14, 1943. On that fateful day two hundred and ninety one hulking B-17 Flying Fortresses - escorted by squadrons of nimble P-47 Thunderbolts - miraculously fought their way through swarms of Messerschmitt Me-109's, Focke-Wulf FW-190's, Heinkel He-113's and more on their way to cripple the enemy's vital ball-bearings plant at Schweinfurt.
"Shot Down is a compelling story of our B-17 aircrews that flew, fought, and died over Europe to save a continent from tyranny and oppression. There were over 56,000 downed airmen in World War II. Lt. Howard Snyder and the crew of the Susan Ruth were one of those crews that went down over Europe... --General Duncan J. McNabb, USAF, retired, 33rd Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force." -- back cover
