Customer Reviews

And No Purple Heart

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It has been great fun to remain in contact with a crew member who wrote a book about the day in the 385th Bomb Group. Franks starts from day one and chronicles all of the 35 missions. Some were milk runs, some were terrifying and most were just plain tough, hope we make it variety. We all made it but two, the bombardier shot down over Berlin and the navigator killed in the air. The other waste gunner bailed out over Berlin and after a long session as P.W. was released by a forward American army group. The story of our navigator, Woodrow Wilson Dutt, "W.W." to us is one of stark reality, valiant crew members doing all they could to save him at 50 below in a battered airplane. The trip to Cambridge cemetary and the mournful playing of taps will not soon be forgotten.

And No Purple Heart is a powerful account of a young airman's struggle to survive 35 grueling combat missions over The Third Reich. B-17 ball-turret gunner Frank Reese Mays has written a great book, a stirring salute to the resilience of the human spirit. Feelings of fear, grief, and despair constantly plagued the young men of the 8th Airforce as they fought the greatest airwar in history and lost far too many friends in the process. But fear, grief, and despair lost. Life won. Darkness never lasts, and the pages of And No Purple Heart bear eloquent witness to that timeless truth.

"And No Purple Heart" by Frank Mays is a facinating reminiscence of the days over 50 years ago when each of the 10 men on a B-17 flew into combat wondering if this day would be his last. You'll feel the awesome tensions as you read this account of his story." Ed Stern, Exec Officer, 550th Bomb Squadron, 385th Bomb Group, U.S. 8th Air Force.

"During World War II in the air over Europe, there were many heroes in the 385th Bomb Group of the U.S.8th Air Force. Clearly Frank Mays was one of these. None, however, had a more interesting life between missions than Frank Mays--as he chronicled in his facinating story, "And No Purple Heart"!" Bob Silver, Pilot and Command Pilot, 385th Bomb Group-U.S.8th Air Force.

I read other online reviews of this book and thought I'd get it for my dad as a present since he was also based in England. I ended up reading it instead of wrapping it and was very disappointed. Though I appreciate Mr. Mays efforts during WW II, that's where my appreciation ends.

I enjoy reading good fiction so maybe that was my mistake. The book is a poorly written. For example: "He had worked hard and given no quarters for his new friends." There is no character development. We hear about endless heartbreak over a fellow crewman's death while never having so much as a description of him prior to that. We have questions, maybe mysteries, which are never cleared up.

This is primarily an account of Mr. Mays' affairs with a variety of ladies (owing it all to Lifebuoy soap and 1940 phermones), his trauma over lost crewmates, and his ability to catch on quickly (thanks to a 160 IQ though little schooling). It seems the lack of schooling has caught up with him across these 300 pages.

"Taking his thirty-five combat missions as a backdrop, Frank Mays has produced a coming-of-age narrative that engages with the punch and speed of fiction. Gutsy, candid, touching, this ball turret gunner's story is not just another "there I was..."war memoir. William A. McIntosh, Colonel, USA (Ret.), Vice President for Education, National D-Day Memorial