Troop, supply and armor convoys, bridges, road and rail networks were all fair game for the low-flying Marauder B-26 medium bomber. But flying below 12,000 feet against enemy positions had its cost. This is the moving account of one man's experiences in the tactical air war over Europe in World War II. A Quaker by birth and a pacifist by nature, author Ken Brown nonetheless felt it his duty to enlist in the fight against fascism. Little did he expect that he would find himself in the plexiglass nose of a low-flying Marauder, surrounded by enemy anti-aircraft flak bursts. "Marauder Man is also an important historical record of one of the most remarkable and unsung American warplanes in World War II--the Marauder B-26 medium bomber that, in the words of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, "made possible the decision to land on continent." In vivid prose, Ken Brown brings the thrilling story of the B-26 and the men who flew it, to life.
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"A Precise yet sensitive account of combat life in an aircraft Brown came to respect and even love, and a memoir often unique in its perspective and insight."
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A good personal account of the Marauder experience,
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This review is from: Marauder Man: The Story of the Bomber That Made D-Day Possible (Paperback)
I have a personal connection to the subject matter of this account so I can hardly claim to be an unbiased reviewer. My father was a tail-gunner on a B-26 based in England and France during the last year of the war. His cousin and business partner after the war was also a tail-gunner on the Marauder but he was shot down over North Africa and spent the rest of the war as a guest of the Third Reich in Stalag 17 in Germany. Yes, there actually was a Stalag 17.
This book was a quick, informative and fun read. It's a personal account by a navigator who flew raids on the B-26 and it's successor, the A-26. He describes his transition from Quaker farmboy to air warrior in a quick-paced and very readable style. It's not elegantly written and the structure of the book is a bit odd but he does give the reader a feel of what it was like to be an aircrewman on the Marauder. Despite have a reputation as a "widow-maker", the B-26 was actually a very sturdy and effective aircraft and much loved by it's crew. His writing conveys some of why these bombers became almost alive for the men who flew them. My dad never talked about his experiences so this book is one of the few means I have of learning what that part of his life was like. I'm grateful to the author for helping me to understand what my father and so many others like him went through. It's particularly important to be mindful of them now that their voices are fading at the rate of over 1,000 a day. All of the stories of the war are important and deserve to be heard, remembered and listened to with deep and eternal gratitude.
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