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Hell Hawks!: The Untold Story of the American Fliers Who Savaged Hitler's Wehrmacht Hardcover – June 15, 2008
| Robert F. Dorr (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
| Thomas D. Jones (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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Hell Hawks sets a new standard for histories of the tactical anti-war in Europe. Veteran authors Bob Dorr and Tom Jones combine masterfully crafted veteran interviews with the broader picture of the air war fought by the Thunderbolt men. You gain a new appreciation of just how tough their deadly task was, and the courage needed to fly close air support against the Nazi fighters and flak. This outstanding book raises the bar on aviation history as it brings alive the true story of an aerial band of brothers." - Colonel Walter J. Boyne, National Aviation Hall of Famer, former director of the National Air & Space Museum, and best-selling author
Hell Hawks!is the story of the band of young American fighter pilots, and their gritty, close-quarters fight against Hitlers vaunted military. The "Hell Hawks" were the men and machines of the 365th Fighter Group.
Beginning just prior to D-Day, June 6, 1944, the groups young pilots (most were barely twenty years old and fresh from flight training in the United States) flew in close support of Eisenhowers ground forces as they advanced across France and into Germany. They flew the rugged, heavily armed P-47 Thunderbolt, aka the Jug. Living in tents amid the cold mud of their front-line airfields, the 365ths daily routine had much in common with that of the G.I.s they supported.
Their war only stopped with the Nazi surrender on May 8, 1945. During their year in combat, the Hell Hawks paid a heavy price to win the victory. Sixty-nine pilots and airmen died in the fight across the continent. The Groups 1,241 combat missions -- the daily confrontation of sudden, violent death -- forged bonds between these men that remain strong sixty years later. This book will tell their story, the story of the Hell Hawks.
- Print length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherZenith Press
- Publication dateJune 15, 2008
- Dimensions6.5 x 1.25 x 9.25 inches
- ISBN-100760329184
- ISBN-13978-0760329184
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"The product of four years of research, [Hell Hawks!] doesn't merely entertain with 'I was there' tales of intrepid aviators, it takes the reader back to a time of our 'greatest generation,' and puts one alongside boys just out of their teens, uprooted from their peacetime lives and thrust, for example, into the cauldron of the Battle of the Bulge...gripping, accurate, and engaging."
From the Inside Flap
Hell Hawks! is the story of a band of young American pilots and their gritty, close-quarters fight against Hitler’s vaunted military. The Hell Hawks were the 365th Fighter Group, three squadrons of fighter-bomber pilots. Beginning just prior to D-Day, June 6, 1944, these pilots fresh from flight training in the United States (most were barely twenty years old), flew in close support of Eisenhower’s ground forces as they advanced across France and into Germany.
They flew the rugged, heavily armed P-47 Thunderbolt—affectionately known as “the Jug”—a big tub of a plane that could absorb a pounding from the enemy and still fly back home. Living in tents amid the cold mud of their front-line airfields, the 365th’s daily routine had much in common with the GIs they supported. During their year in combat, the Hell Hawks paid a heavy price for the Nazi surrender on May 8, 1945. Sixty-nine pilots and airmen died in the fight across the continent. The Group’s 1,241 combat missions forged bonds between these men that remain strong sixty years later. Many of them were interviewed for this book, bringing the Hell Hawks’ fight against the Reich to life in their own words.
Robert F. Dorr is an Air Force veteran (Korea, 1957–1960), a retired senior American diplomat (1964–1989), and the author of sixty books and thousands of magazine articles and newspaper columns about the Air Force and air warfare. In the past year, Bob has written for Air and Space Smithsonian, Flight Journal, Air Forces Monthly, Air Power History, and many other publications. He is a columnist for Air Force Times newspaper and writes the Washington Watch feature for Aerospace America magazine. His recent book, Air Force One, a history of presidential aircraft and air travel, has been praised by critics. Bob lives in Oakton, Virginia, with his family and their Labrador retriever.
Thomas D. Jones, PhD,is a veteran NASA astronaut, scientist, speaker, author, and consultant. He holds a doctorate in planetary sciences, and during eleven years with NASA flew on four space shuttle missions, totaling fifty-three days in space. Tom is a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and piloted B-52D strategic bombers prior to joining NASA’s astronaut corps. He has written about space exploration and aviation history in Air and Space Smithsonian, Aerospace America, and Popular Mechanics. He is the co-author of two young adult books, Mission: Earth and The Scholastic Encyclopedia of the United States at War, as well as The Complete Idiot’s Guide to NASA. His autobiography is Sky Walking: An Astronaut’s Memoir. Tom is a regular on-air contributor for Fox News Channel’s spaceflight coverage and lives in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.
From the Back Cover
Closer [to his target] now, airspeed 450 miles per hour out of the dive, that big 2,430-horsepower Pratt & Whitney up front was howling with emergency water-injection thrust. Wells triggered the first burst from his .50-calibers at a flak pit that was blasting what looked like glowing white coals past his canopy. More tracers came ripping up from gun positions and a flak tower ringing the site. Ignore them. What Wells couldn’t ignore was what he’d seen in the recon target photos: a string of telephone poles around the target’s perimeter. “We didn’t know what it was, if it had antennas on it, or what.”
Wells was at thirty-five feet, flattening barley fields and bending small trees in his wake, when he discovered the reason for the telephone poles—and the tough steel cables strung between them. They were there to kill him.About the Author
Two seasoned authors are behind Hell Hawks! Bob Dorr and Tom Jones have both written successful aviation, space, and history books based on their decades of experience with military and aviation history.
Robert F. Dorr is an Air Force veteran, a retired senior American diplomat, and the author of 60 books and thousands of magazine articles and newspaper columns about the Air Force and air warfare. He is a columnist for Air Force Times newspaper and writes the "Washington Watch" feature for Aerospace America magazine.
Bob has interviewed hundreds of veterans of World War II and maintains a photography archive of Air Force combat operations. Bob served in the Air Force in Korea (1957-60), and was a Foreign Service embassy at American embassies and consulates (1964-89) before becoming a fulltime author.
In the past year, Bob has written for Air and Space Smithsonian, Aerospace America, Flight Journal, as well as Air Forces Monthly, Air Power History, and many other publications. His book Air Force One, a history of presidential aircraft and air travel, has been praised by critics. Other recent books by Robert F. Dorr include Korean Air War, co-authored with Warren Thompson, and the Alpha Bravo Guide to the U. S. Army. Bob lives in Oakton, Virginia, with his family and Labrador retriever.
Thomas D. Jones
Dr. Thomas D. Jones is a scientist, author, pilot, and former NASA astronaut. A Distinguished Graduate of the Air Force Academy, Tom piloted B-52D strategic bombers for five years before beginning his NASA career. He holds a doctorate in planetary sciences, and in more than eleven years with NASA, flew on four space shuttle missions totaling 53 days in orbit. On his last flight, Dr. Jones led three spacewalks to install the centerpiece of the International Space Station, the American Destiny laboratory.
In the past year, Tom has written for Air and Space Smithsonian, Aerospace America, Flight Journal, and Checkpoints magazines. He is the co-author of two books for young adults, both written with June A. English. Mission: Earth (Scholastic, 1996) detailed his orbital experiences on two missions to take the pulse of the planet's ecosystem, oceans, and geology. The Scholastic Encyclopedia of the United States at War (Scholastic, 1998) traced our nation's path through conflict and peace to its place as the world's lone superpower. He co-authored with Michael Benson, The Complete Idiot's Guide to NASA, (Alpha, 2002). His most recent book book, Space Station Odyssey was published by Smithsonian Institution Press in 2004.
Dr. Jones consults, writes, and speaks from the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.
Product details
- Publisher : Zenith Press; 1st edition (June 15, 2008)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0760329184
- ISBN-13 : 978-0760329184
- Item Weight : 1.42 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.5 x 1.25 x 9.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #837,167 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #155 in Military Regiment History
- #1,857 in Military Aviation History (Books)
- #8,207 in World War II History (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors

Robert F. Dorr, 71, is an author (1955- ); an Air Force veteran (1957-60); and a retired senior Foreign Service officer (a diplomat; 1964-89). He has three books currently in print. The newest is "MISSION TO BERLIN,":about the Americans who fought in one of the largest aerial battles of World War II.
He is the author of 70 books and thousands of magazine articles about the Air Force, aviation and military affairs. He writes a weekly opinion column for Air Force Times, monthly columns for Combat Aircraft, Air International and Aerospace America magazines, and a quarterly column for Air Power History, which he helped create. His first paid magazine article was in the November 1955 Air Force magazine when he was fifteen. He wrote 1,700 history columns for all four Military Times newspapers from 2000 to 2009.
Bob Dorr's other books in print are "HELL HAWKS,"" co-authored with Thomas D. Jones, a history of a P-47 Thunderbolt fighter group in World War II and "AIR FORCE ONE," a history of presidential aircraft.
He is a private pilot and parachutist and has flown aboard most current Air Force aircraft. Bob Dorr lives in Oakton, Virginia with his wife Young Soon, a career government worker, and their Labrador retriever, Autumn. They have two grown sons with families.

www.AstronautTomJones.com
Thomas D. Jones, PhD is a veteran NASA astronaut, shuttle payload commander, scientist, speaker, author, and consultant. He holds a doctorate in planetary sciences, and in more than eleven years with NASA, flew on four space shuttle missions to Earth orbit. On his last flight, Dr. Jones led three spacewalks to install the centerpiece of the International Space Station, the American Destiny laboratory. He has spent fifty-three days working and living in space.
Tom is a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy. He piloted B-52D strategic bombers, studied asteroids for NASA, engineered intelligence-gathering systems for the CIA, and helped develop advanced mission concepts to explore the solar system prior to joining NASA's astronaut corps.
Tom is the co-author of Planetology: Unlocking the Secrets of the Solar System (written with Ellen Stofan, PhD; National Geographic, 2008). His other 2008 book, Hell Hawks! (with Robert F. Dorr; Zenith Press), is an action-packed true story of an aerial band of brothers in WWII. The Wall Street Journal named his Sky Walking: An Astronaut's Memoir (Smithsonian-Collins, 2006) as one of its "Five Best" books about space. Tom writes frequently for Air & Space Smithsonian, Aerospace America, Popular Mechanics, and American Heritage magazines.
Dr. Jones' awards include the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, four NASA Space Flight Medals, the NASA Exceptional Service Award, the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal, the NASA Exceptional Public Service Award, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Air Force Commendation Medal. King's College of Wilkes-Barre, Penn. awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2007.
Tom served on the NASA Advisory Council and is a board member of the Association of Space Explorers and the Astronauts Memorial Foundation. A regular on-air contributor to television spaceflight and science coverage, he is currently active in the debate over our nation's space exploration policy.
Contact information:
www.AstronautTomJones.com
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I look at HH! as a story of flexibility, of an organization that practiced a new way to fight the enemy (without churning up the terrain by massive artillery barrages). They became the artillery, and dished out some of the medicine that the Stuka was famous for.
Years ago, I listened to an elderly glider pilot. He had been in the 9th A.F. and he observed: 'we always had replacement planes, but sometimes with the pace of operations, we ran short of pilots'. It rocked me. The war consumed pilots as fast as G.I.s. But we look back on WW II as a quick termination to a cancerous regime. It had to be done; think of this book as the sort of stories you'd hear if you attended a unit reunion.
You know you are flying too low when you can see Germans shooting at you with their pistols, but the tradeoff is you are returning fire with .50 cal slugs.
The best!
Pros: The research is fantastic, as are the interviews. Includes some previously unseen photos, occasional map. The author makes clear the mortality rate of not only combat flying, but from operational and training accidents as well. The Hell Hawks operated from primitive fields close to the front and were the terror of German ground forces, as well as enthusiastically tangling with German fighters, including ME-262s. Pilots tell of surviving being shot down, evading, being captured, dropping napalm on Germans, blowing up trains, lots of flack, etc. There are some interviews with the enemy as well, describing what it was like to be extremely paranoid of Jabos. The narrative and interviews clearly show the development of tactics and skills learned the hard way as the war progressed. It's incredible stuff even if you're not particularly interested in Thunderbolts.




