Customer Reviews

In Hostile Skies: An American B-24 Pilot in World War II (North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series)

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When you first see this book you can't help but think, 'What, another bomber pilot story.' Yes, it's another bomber pilot story. B-24's in the Eighth Air Force. In some ways it's a familiar story. But in spite of that, each story is different.

About half of this book is about the eighteen months spent in training to fly the B-24. Then they went to England and began their tour. They got to England on D-Day. They basically flew in the last year of the war. This was the time of the really big raids, a thousand, fifteen hundred planes. This was also the time of the ME-262. ==He was in London on pass when the largest number of V-1s in a single day attacked. (Many, many years later I stayed in the same hotel he used, the Great NorthEastern.)

He was in on Operation Cobra. He reports that his plane did not drop bombs because of an inability to positively identify the target. This was the day that the Air Force walked their bombs backwards over a road and killed a lot of Americans including Lt. General MacNair, the highest ranking American killed in Europe.

Once he cut his head open on a bomb fin as they were preparing for a mission. He went to the hospital. They put a bandage on it and told him that when he got back from the mission, if he got back, they would sew it up.

He participated in Operation Market Garden. This was the disaster described in the book/movie 'A Bridge Too Far.' There is an absolutely frightening picture of a B-24 nose down headed for a crash that was taken during this operation.

One point that makes this book more effective is the research done by Mr. Snead. He has checked the official history of each mission that Mr. Davis flew and gives the details as to what happened.

All in all, I found this to be one of those you can't put it down books. Highly recommended.

In Hostile Skies: An American B-24 Pilot In World War II is the military memoir of James Davis, who piloted a B-24 as part of the Eighth Air Force on almost thirty missions in the European Theater during World War II. Chapters recount the story of his service from his dreams of flying, to training, his first mission, terrible close calls, the end of the tour, and coming home after the war. A handful of black-and-white historical photographs nicely illustrate this gripping firsthand testimony, so visceral as to be the next best thing to personally experiencing the wonders of flight and the terrors of war.

This is, unfortunately, yet another bomber pilot memoir. It's worth reading for the details, but the author's tour over Europe was relatively uneventful. But then, the only guys that get to write their memoirs are the ones that survived.

The writing doesn't support the story very well, plus anybody with piloting experience will occasionally cringe at the errors made in the text.

Worth reading, but there are better choices out there.