Customer Reviews

Wings Of Morning: The Story Of The Last American Bomber Shot Down Over Germany In World War II

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3 star:		(1)
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Having heard all of Dr. Childer's excellent audio courses available from the Teaching Company, I had very high expectations for this book. I was not disappointed; Wings of Morning is an exceptional book that details the war time experiences of a B-24 bomber crew from their initial induction and training, to their deployment to England as part of the 8th Air Force, through their fateful final mission in the closing days of Word War II. A final mission, incidentally, that the reader can not help but conclude should have never been flown.

Based on hundreds of crewmember letters home, Wings of Morning provides insights that go far beyond the usual combat narrative. The combat experience is here to be sure, but so is the training, off-duty hours, weekend leaves, camaraderie, devotion to duty, exhilaration, boredom, bravery, fear, hope for the future, and the families back home. This book, more than any I've ever read, gave me an appreciation for the near constant tension that these men must have felt. I repeatedly found myself asking what I would have done in similar situations and realizing anew why those who fought World War II are rightly called the "Greatest Generation".

Wings of Morning does not end with the loss of a B-24 crew over Regensburg, Germany, in April of 1945 nor with the War Department notifications to the families waiting at home. Professor Childer's uncle was a crew member on that tragic flight and the final chapters of this extraordinary book detail his quest to reconstruct the final mission of a B-24 known as the Black Cat.

I've read and own many good books about World War II but none has had the impact of Wings of Morning. Thank you, Dr. Childers, for this insightful and thought provoking work...

The writing style of this author is as vivid as any. He reconstructs the life of not only his uncle Howard but also of the crewman of "The Black Cat". You will feel intimately close to all these men, and it can leave you with a sinking feeling as you know of the fate of this aircraft. This is not a Hollywood ending, nor is it exceptionally sad, it is just the realities of WWII, told in a frank and descriptive style that will allow the reader to fully grasp the camaraderie and cohesion that goes on among the crew of a B-24. Even this is not without difficulty as one crewmember becomes increasingly withdrawn and violent, eventually leading to his removal from the crew. A searing and unforgettable book that will allow you into world of a bomber crew based in England. This book goes far beyond the scope of just bombing missions over Germany, but explores the childhoods and recreation time of these soldiers before their fateful mission.

I sent this book to a pilot of 35 missions over Germany in WWII, and he told me via E-mail that the writing was great and the research excellent. From the voice of experience. A wonderful book.

Quite possibly one of the best books about the final months of the life of an airplane and its crew I've ever read (and I've read a few). Based on letters, pictures, and accounts written by the doomed airmen, their families, friends, and associates, and interviews with the only surviving member of the crew (who was so shaken by the tragedy that he avoided reunions and interviews for several years), Childers takes you through the crew's basic training and service in England up to the final mission. From there, he explains his adventures in researching his family history and enlisting the help of an amateur German historian in piecing together the final moments of the airplane. Yes, you may even cry as Childers puts a name to a face and a spirit to a body that perished long before its time. Get this book. You won't be disappointed.

Through the years, I've read a number of histories and memoirs on the Eighth Air Force in World War II. Many of those volumes, published over 6 decades, were more authoritative, complete, wide-ranging, and fact-filled than this volume.

Yet if I had to recommend a SINGLE book to give someone the flavor of all of those experiences represented by all those many books, this would be the one.

WINGS OF MORNING is an exceptional effort. The writing is wonderful; the information and tales presented colorful and telling. The author has a level of talent given only to a handful of non-fiction writers - the ability of a poet, to flash insights of feeling while describing facts. It's in the class of Bruce Catton and David McCullough.

In a plain and straight-forward manner, and without resorting to any plot gimmicks or other devices, this book wrings the reader through an emotional journey that doesn't start or stop around VE-Day. It is a *wise* book; informed by age and living.

I recommend it to everyone.

What a visceral impact Tom Childers' Wings of Morning had on me. Unable to put the book down, I read it in two days. Not only does the author vividly describe the training and every day life of a WWII bomber crew, he also makes you feel like Goodner's family, anxiously awaiting the next letter. Not wanting to give away the results of a frantic search to find out what happened to this crew after being shot down over Germany, let me suggest that you buy the book, curl up in your chair, and read as one hell of a story unfolds. Next to Guy Sajer's "The Forgotten Soldier", you'll have a hard time finding a better account of the war and the men who fought it. As an aside, Professor Childers has a superb course on WWII available through the Teaching Company. And I encourage all of you to seek it out as well.

This book had a personal effect on my relationship between myself and my grandfather.
I was researching the history of my grandfather's air wing when this book came out. After I read this book I sent a copy to my grandfather and it reopened a rich set of memories that he had filed away.
Of all the WW2 books I have read this is easily one of the best. It tells the heartfelt story of a group of young brave men.
The way the book begins with the memories of the author is most compelling. His description of the room of color just absolutely grabs you. I still get chills thinking about it.

When my grandfather returned to Eagleville Tn it wasn't considered polite to discuss the war. Cliff got back to living. He went to college, raised a family and he didn't discuss it for 50 years. After reinvigorating his memories from this fine, amazing book we had long discussions on his role as a tail gunner.
I later took a trip to Norwich to visit the memorial library and tour the remains of the air base (It's now a turkey farm!) and videotaped it for my grandfather who couldn't come due to the declining health of my grandmother.
We were able to determine that my grandfather's hut was in all likelihood the hut these men moved into when they arrived. We determined this from the dates in the book and the guide's knowledge of the site.

When Cliff's 35 missions were over he packed up and went home at the same time this ill fated crew arrived. Looks like timing is everything.

I also got to take Cliff to the reunion of wing at Charleston in the 8th Air Force Museum which is a worthwhile trip in itself.

If you have any dreams to visit these sites, take action now. The only regrets you will have is not doing it sooner before these great men and women are not around to answer your questions any more.
Thanks for your patience with this personal account.

There are very few books written, and even fewer read, that will motivate or so move a reader to go to unusual lengths to want to know or try and understand who the protagonist of the story really was;who he must have been. This is just such a book, and this is no ordinary story. First, and foremost, it is a true personal account of one of thousands of American young men from a typical all American small town of the 1940's, who had everything going for him in his small southern town, with a bright future before him. Sports, a steady girl, maybe college. But the war in Europe and Pearl Harbor interrupted that future for Howard Goodner and the many like him. He stood on a train platform one morning and,like so many others, kissed his mother goodbye, assured her he'd be alright and went off to the army to become an aviator. But not everyone who trained could sit in that pilot or co-pilot's seat of the new B-24 Liberator heavy bomber. This amazing story is taken from the letters of SGT. Howard Goodner to his mother, and found, quite by accident, by Professor Thomas Childers locked in a desk, that Howard's mother, Childers' grandmother, had left for him upon her death. The letters, stuck in a drawer that must have been much too painful to open, describes in vivid detail the complete stateside training of a typical B-24 aircrew...the selection process,the daily routines, the nuances of the B-24, the incredible training accident rates and the midair accidents that Howard witnesses, that kill 10-20 men at a time, before even leaving the United States. The narrative is compelling and written so well that you feel that you are getting to know Howard Goodner as he operates the radio on board his plane and interacts with his crew. Goodner describes what a B-24 aircrew was like, personally, on the ground and in the air. The men in his crew...the quiet ones, the screwballs and the crewmember they even vote off the airplane. He describes the terror of the missions and the relief of seeing that home base runway. This is perhaps the best description of the training, deployment, combat and daily life in wartime England of an average WW2 American bomber aircrew ever written. The story is also a family one. Goodner's brother in law, also an airman, is within bike riding distance of his airfield in England and they often meet after either one returns from a mission over Germany or Holland. They write letters home telling of seeing each other and that all is okay, until the day that Howard's ship, The Black Cat, does not return from a mission. The entire crew but one is lost and the family's share an anguish for years afterward that Childer's describes in one of the few "Gold Star" families accounts you will read. Childer's writes movingly of the families of the crew as they desperately attempt to learn something from the War Department. Childer's narrative is such that you can feel the fear as though the fateful telegram is arriving at your own door. Victor Davis Hanson describes in his "Ripples of Battle" the ramifications of lives lost in wartime and the ripple effects, we almost never consider, on the surviving families. His theory is spot on in "Wings of Morning." It is a moving story of a nephew,Childers,who, decades later and against astronomical odds finds the lone survivor of the Black Cat and persuades him to return to England to a quiet deserted, unused airfield, where machines of war once roared and hundreds of men lived and worked. You will thrill as they find the cement pad where the Black Cat crew hut once stood and where Childer's uncle may have even had his bunk. You will become emotional when the surviving crewmember, now a senior citizen, while on the commercial flight into Germany to find the crash site of the Black Cat,tells Childers, "The last time I flew here was that day, with your uncle." The fatal flight was only two weeks before the war in Europe ended. This is a human history, a detailed incisive aviation history and a truly American family story. After reading this book I was so moved, unlike any book I have read of this period, that I drove to Cleveland, Tennessee with a colleague who also had read the book. We went to "Find" Howard Goodner. We saw all the surprisingly surviving places that Howard knew and that Prof. Childers describes in the book. The old hotel, the soda shop and even the old train platform where he said good-bye. Finally, we found Sgt. Howard Goodner. Or rather, he found us. Why we turned into that particular cemetery of the three that serviced the area we didn't know, and although we searched for his grave, after three hours searching in the hot sun we were ready to give up and drive the three hours home. We had ranged far from where we parked our car on the top of a hill and were heading back up to retrieve it, when just five feet from the car, we "accidentally" found the grave of SGT. Howard Goodner. Or, did we? We thanked him for his service and his sacrifice and we thanked Prof. Childers for writing such a vivid, moving and accurately engaging account of the short life of an average American hero.

I would conservatively estimate that I have read 500 books on WWII, and this would rate in the top three. I cannot recall a book that more completely gripped me from start to finish. Childers' unique "first person" story telling breathes life into young men that have long passed from this world. Through dialogue that seems very easy to accept as real, he makes us love and respect these true American heroes, and then causes us to feel the loss (albeit a minute fraction) that their families and friends felt almost sixty years ago. I cannot recommend a book more highly, even if you are not a WWII scholar. If you are, it is a MUST read.

I found the book by coincidence during my last trip to the States and read it on the way back to Germany. I'm a member of a group of researchers doing similar research on WW2 planes and the fates of their crews and this is an excellent example of research plus shaping it into words and finally a book. Back home I contacted Peter Schmoll who is mentioned in the book and talked long to him. Some more details came out after the publishing. This book - like so many other - had to be translated into German so people here also could read it. Later I visited the graves of Noe, Peterson and Farrington at Lorraine Cemetery, St. Avold, France, just an hour from my hometown St. Wendel in Germany, three graves of 10,500 burried there. But now three with a written history behind them. Thanks a lot, Mr. Childers. Your work is much appreciated. Not alone in America.

Richard (Dickie) Farrington was my Grannys cousin. She used to speak often of the flights around Indiana in the old crop duster bi-plane with dickie at the stick. Pictures show why they were the playboys of the 466th. Many years to sort through for this tight family, lots of questions have gone un-answered. I was very pleased when another family member just happened to be doing a research paper at Indiana University and found a copy of the "Attlebridge diaries, the history of the 466bomber group" its out of print now. Packed with information for those that would like to read on. We as a family THANK the author for the hard work and dedication that it took to compile such a part of history. Dickie was not slated for the flight and chose to go anyway...In a non-camoflaged aircraft from what we can remember. Some photos and reports say otherwise...I want to put it all together. Granny has gone on to blue skies and is having coffee with dickie, we hope. They know the truth, now I want it as well! God Bless! email jblodgett@tombush.com