Customer Reviews

The History of the 446th Bomb Group (H) 1943-1945

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was told about this book by a lead pilot, Richard Cole. He appears on the back of the dust jacket with his crew in front of his ship, Lady Luck. He is the guy who is eating a doughnut! He is enthusiastic about this book as am I. The number and quality of the photographs is astounding. You often find some of the original aircraft with their original crews, and then see them handed down to fresh crews as tours were completed. The book was written by a young man who heard tales of one of the group's planes crash landing near his town. He gives very fine summaries for each month of the group's combat history. The rest is basically mission summaries and the missing aircraft reports are quoted for each ship lost. There are way too many of those, though for those of us who were not there they give you a real feeling for the losses suffered by the group. In one missing aircrew report a survivor wrote about bailing out from his crippled B-24. The pilot knew he couldn't jump because if he had left the controls the plane would go into a spin before anyone could bail out. The pilot, still at the controls and knowing he was in his last moments nodded and smiled at his crewman just before he jumped. There are many first hand accounts of survivors from these unfortunate crews, and these accounts were written while memories were all too fresh The only thing I would have done to improve the book is to interview aircrew that did not get shot down, as they also have incredible stories to tell. This book's printing was limited to 2,000 copies, so you would be wise to pay the rather high price and call it an investment. If you are a veteran of this group or a family member of a veteran, you need to get this fine book as a keepsake. If you are a student of Eighth Airforce operations in World War II, you should take advantage of a rare opportunity to acquire a copy of this book.