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Summary: An Eighth Air Force Combat Diary
Review: This book is written by a Co-pilot of the 418th Bomb Squadron, 100th Bomb Group based at Thorpe Abbotts, England. It is his diary of 32 combat missions during the European Theatre of Operations September 1944 to March 1945. I found this excellently detailed as it was written at the time.
It describes his training as a pilot in the US, the Trans-Atlantic flight in a B-17 from Lincoln, Nebraska to Valley, Wales and flying combat missions over Germany.
Each mission description starts with a copy of his briefing notes which detail engine start, taxi and take off times, target name, altitude formation and callsigns for fighter escorts! Also a newspaper clipping from that day the mission was flown. Copies of John Clark's combat flight log are included towards the end of the book. This book is full of photographs never before published; taken of the formations of B-17s streching endlessly across the sky with streaming contrails, the flak clouds over the target, on base scenes of nissen huts in the fog, frost on the trees, aircraft sitting on their hardstands in the early morning mist, and photographs of the crews. When reading this book, you can visualize everything that is happening, emotions are described and felt when and engine is out, when enemy fighters pass through the formation, when flak burst nearby, or finding that there may not be enough fuel to make it home! After the war in 1962, 1966, and 1987 he returns to the base he once flew from to find it deteriating even more with each visit. The only remnants in his last visit is the control tower that has now been restored as a museum and a memorial to those who served with the 100th Bomb Group. I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in reading personal accounts of World War II.
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