Memories of the horrors of war are often sealed forever in the minds of the participants. Alabama Bomber Boys is the story of some sixty World War II veterans who, after six decades, opened their minds to tell today's generation, especially our youth, of their horrendous experiences in four engine bombers in the frigid skies over Hitler's Europe.
Through previously unpublished oral and written accounts they discuss the pre-war Alabama culture from which they came, the culture in Britain where they lived and from which they flew, and the transition of the Eighth Air Force from an impotent bomber force in 1943 to the most powerful air force in the world in 1945. When the airmen returned to Alabama, they were no longer the eighteen or nineteen year old boys that went off to war in 1941; in twenty-five missions over Germany, with their lives in the balance, they lost their youth. They had become "men," who had witnessed falling aircraft, dangling parachutes, air to air collisions, bombers exploding in air, and countless other miraculous near death incidents. Five had endured the agony of German prison camps. One had received the Medal of Honor. Several had nearly lost their lives bailing out of their burning bombers. The memories they relate, some good and many bad, will haunt them for the rest of their lives. Thankfully, some of those memories have been unlocked and make the story of Alabama Bomber Boys possible.
Donald E. Wilson
2008, 5.5" x 8.5", paper, index, 188 pp.
ISBN: 9780788446825
101-W4682
