The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany 1944-1945 (31 page)

Leslie RunningAdrain SwainHenry Wooten

Robert B. RussellRobert M. TankTom Wright

Al SaldariniDavid E. TavelBenedict Yedlin

Bill SauerweinPaul TaylorJulie Zimmerman

Donald W. Saunders

Walter T. Zumpe

E. Frank Schermerhorn

Sam Scheider

William Schnyer

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS

Ambrose, Stephen E. Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect.

New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983.

Anson, Robert Sam. McGovern. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972.  Aronowitz, Marguerite Madison. Maternity Ward: Final Flight of a World War II Liberator. Prescott, Ariz.: Pine Castle Books, 1998.  Asch, Alfred, Hugh Graff, and Thomas Ramey. The Story of the Four Hundred and Fifty-fifth Bombardment Group (H) World War II: Flight of the Vulgar Vultures.  Appleton, Wis.: Graphic Communications Center, 1991; reprinted 1999.

Barnes, William. Disaster at Bari: Top Secret! New York: Ace, 1973.

Birdsall, Steve. Log of the Liberators. New York: Doubleday, 1973.  Bowman, Martin W.B-24 Liberator, 1939-45. Privately printed; copy in Eisenhower Center, New Orleans.

Capps, Robert S. Flying Colt: Liberator Pilot in Italy. Privately printed; copy in Eisenhower Center, New Orleans.

Carigan, William. Ad Lib: Flying the B-24 Liberator in World War II. Manhattan, Kans.: Sunflower University Press, 1988.

Childers, Thomas. Wings of Morning: The Story of the Last American Bomber Shot Down over Germany in World War II. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1995.

Copp, DeWitt S. Forged in Fire: Strategy and Decisions in the Airwar over Europe,

1940-1945. New York: Doubleday, 1982.

Craven, Wesley Frank, and James Lea Cate, eds. The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 2,Europe: Torch to Pointblank, August 1942 to December 1943. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1949.

---.The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 3,Europe: Argument to V-E Day, January 1944 to May 1945. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951.  ---.The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 6,Men and Planes. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1955.

Currier, Donald R.50 Mission Crush. Shippensburg, Penn.: Burd Street Press, 1992.

Davis, Larry.B-24 Liberator in Action. Carrollton, Tex.: Signal Publications, 1987.

Fagan, Vincent F. Liberator Pilot: The Cottontails’ Battle for Oil. Carlsbad, Calif.: California Aero Press, 1991.

Francis, Devon. Flak Bait. Washington, D.C.: Zenger Publishing, 1948.  Hammer, R. J. Small Tales: Tall Tales: Poetry: Fiction. Privately printed, Sidney, Mont., 1990.

Hastings, Max. Bomber Command: The Myths and Realities of the Strategic Bombing Offensive, 1939-45. New York: Dial Press, 1979.

Hoagland, Edgar D.The Sea Hawks: With the PT Boats at War. Novato, Calif.:

Presidio Press, 1999.

Holway, John B. Red Tails, Black Wings: The Men of America’s Black Air Force. Las

Cruces, N.M.: Yucca Tree Press, 1997.

Hughes, Walter. A Bomber Pilot in World War II: From Farm Boy to Pilot. Privately

printed, 1994.

Jablonski, Edward. Airwar. New York: Doubleday, 1971.  Johnsen, Frederick A.B-24 Liberator: Combat and Development of the Liberator and Privateer. Privately printed, 1993.

Lanford, Horace.741st Bomb Sq. History . Privately printed, Vols. 1-4, 1991.  Lloyd, Alwin T. Liberator: America’s Global Bomber. Missoula, Mont.: Pictorial Histories, 1993.

McGovern, George. Grassroots: The Autobiography of George McGovern. New York:

Random House, 1977.

Merritt, J. I. Goodbye, Liberty Belle: A Son’s Search for His Father’s War.

Dayton, Ohio: Wright State University Press, 1993.

Picardo, Eddie. Tales of a Tail Gunner: A Memoir. Seattle: Hara Publishing, 1996.Piekalkiewicz, Januse. The Air War, 1939-1945. Poole, Dorset: Blandford Press, 1985.

Reynolds, Thomas P. Belle of the Brawl: A Biographical Memoir of Walter Malone Baskin. Paducah, Ky.: Turner Publishing Company, 1996.  Rochlin, Fred. Old Man in a Baseball Cap. New York: HarperCollins, 1999.

Rust, Kenn C. Fifteenth Air Force Story. Temple City, Calif.: Historical Aviation

Album, 1976.

Selhaus, Edi. Evasion and Repatriation: Slovene Partisans and the Rescued American Airmen in World War II. Manhattan, Kans.: Sunflower University Press, 1993.

Sherry, Michael S. The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon.

New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.

Smith, John G. Wouldn’t Change a Thing: A Memoir. Chicago: Adams Press, 1996.  Socolofsky, Homer. The Honorable Richard Dean Rogers, Senior United States District Judge. The United States District Court, Kansas. Newton, Kans.:

Mennonite Press, 1995.

Stevens, Bob. “There I Was . . .”: 25 Years. Bonsall, Calif.: Village Press, 1990.

TenHaken, Mel. Bail-Out! POW, 1944-1945. Manhattan, Kans.: Sunflower University Press, 1990.

Ulanoff, Stanley M., ed. Bombs Away! New York: Doubleday, 1971.

Watry, Charles A. Washout! The Aviation Cadet Story. Carlsbad, Calif.: California

Aero Press, 1983.

Watry, Charles A., and Duane L. Hall. Aerial Gunners: The Unknown Aces of World War II. Carlsbad, Calif.: California Aero Press, 1985.  Whitehouse, Arch. The Years of the Warbirds. New York: Doubleday, 1960.

Withington, Ted. Flight to Black Hammer: The Letters of a World War II Pilot.

Brunswick, Maine: Biddle Publishing Company, 1993.

Zinck, Ray. The Final Flight of Maggie’s Drawers. Paducah, Ky.: Turner Publishing

Company, 1998.

JOURNALS

Briefing: Journal of the International B-24 Liberator Club

The Daily Democrat. Woodland, California .

Friends Journal

About the Author

STEPHEN E. AMBROSE is the author of numerous books of history, including the New York Times bestsellers Nothing Like It in the World, Citizen Soldiers, Undaunted Courage, and D-Day, as well as multi-volume biographies of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. He is founder of the Eisenhower Center, president of the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans, and recipient in 1998 of a National Humanities Award. He lives in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and Helena, Montana.

Also by Stephen E. Ambrose

Nothing Like It in the World:

The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863-1869

Comrades: Brothers, Fathers, Heroes, Sons, Pals

The Victors: Eisenhower and His Boys: The Men of World War II

Americans at War

Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the

Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944-May 7, 1945

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the

American West

D-Day: June 6, 1944: The Climatic Battle of World War II

Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to

Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest

Nixon: Ruin and Recovery, 1973-1990

Eisenhower: Soldier and President

Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician, 1962-1972

Nixon: The Education of a Politician, 1913-1962

Pegasus Bridge: June 6, 1944

Eisenhower: The President

Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890-1952 The Supreme Commander:

The War Years of General Dwight D. Eisenhower

Duty, Honor, Country: A History of West Point

Eisenhower and Berlin, 1945

Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors

Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy, 1938-1976

Ike’s Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment

Halleck: Lincoln’s Chief of Staff

Upton and the Army

Copyright

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SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Ambrose, Stephen E.

The wild blue: the men and boys who flew the B-24s over Germany, 1944-1945/ Stephen E. Ambrose.

ISBN 0-7432-1752-7

NOTES

PROLOGUE

1.       Marguerite Madison Aronowitz, Maternity Ward: Final Flight of a World War II Liberator, 11-12; Larry Davis,B-24 Liberator in Action, 6.

2.       William Carigan, Ad Lib: Flying the B-24 Liberator in World War II, 73.

CHAPTER ONE. WHERE THEY CAME FROM

1.       Michael Takiff interview with McGovern, Eisenhower Center.

2.       George McGovern, Grassroots: The Autobiography of George McGovern, 10. Other information on McGovern’s youth comes from interviews with McGovern by Stephen and Hugh Ambrose, from interviews with McGovern by Michael Takiff, and from Robert Sam Anson, McGovern, 17-21.

3.       Ambrose interview with McGovern.

4.       Ibid.; McGovern, Grassroots, 19.

5.       Robert S. Capps, Flying Colt: Liberator Pilot in Italy.

6.       Anson, McGovern, 40.

7.       R. J. Hammer, Small Tales: Tall Tales: Poetry: Fiction, 1-7.

8.       Roland Pepin’s memoirs, written and typed for his grandchildren, copy in the Eisenhower Center.

9.       William Barnes to Ambrose letter, June 5, 2000. Barnes wrote a book, Disaster at Bari: Top Secret!.

10.     Shostack to Ambrose letter, March 31, 2000.

11.     Eugene Hudson interview with Hugh Ambrose, Eisenhower Center.

12.     C. W. Cooper interview with Stephen and Hugh Ambrose, Eisenhower Center.

13.     Barnes interview, Eisenhower Center.

14.     Hammer, Small Tales, 6.

15.     Pepin memoirs, Eisenhower Center.

16.     Cooper interview with Stephen and Hugh Ambrose, Eisenhower Center.

17.     McGovern to Pennington, January 31, 1943, Dakota Wesleyan Library.

18.     McGovern interview, Eisenhower Center.

CHAPTER TWO. TRAINING

1.       Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate, eds., The Army Air Forces in World War

II, Vol. 6,Men and Planes, xi.

2.       McGovern interview, Eisenhower Center.

3.       Ibid.

4.       Craven and Cate, Men and Planes, xxv.

5.       Dwight Eisenhower interview with Ambrose, Eisenhower Center.

6.       Charles A. Watry, Washout! The Aviation Cadet Story, 7-8; Craven and Cate, Men

and Planes, xxviii.

7.       Watry, Washout!, 10.

8.       Kenneth Higgins interview with Hugh Ambrose, Eisenhower Center.

9.       Ibid., 69.

10.     McGovern interview, Eisenhower Center.

11.     Ibid.

12.     Daryl Lembke, “McGovern’s War Years, “The Daily Democrat, Woodland, California, Oct. 10, 1972.

13.     Watry, Washout!, 83.

14.     Thomas P. Reynolds, Belle of the Brawl: A Biographical Memoir of Walter Malone Baskin, 11.

15.     Ibid., 21-22.

16.     John G. Smith, Wouldn’t Change a Thing: A Memoir, 66-71.

17.     C. W. Cooper interview with Hugh and Stephen Ambrose, Eisenhower Center.

18.     Pepin memoirs, Eisenhower Center.

19.     Watry, Washout!, 157.

20.     Cooper interview; Pepin memoirs, Eisenhower Center.

21.     Donald Kay to Ambrose, April 21, 2000, Eisenhower Center.

22.     Ibid.

23.     Homer Socolofsky, The Honorable Richard Dean Rogers, Senior United States District Judge, 38.

24.     Robert “Ken” Barmore memoirs, Eisenhower Center.

25.     Hammer, Small Tales, 8-9.

26.     Thomas Childers, Wings of Morning: The Story of the Last American Bomber Shot

Down over Germany in World War II, 8-14. The figure on those graduating from gunnery school is from Craven and Cate,Men and Planes, 590.

27.     McGovern to Pennington, August 2, 1943, Dakota Wesleyan Library.

28.     McGovern interview, Eisenhower Center.

29.     Reynolds, Belle of the Brawl, 18.

30.     McGovern interview, Eisenhower Center.

31.     Lembke, “McGovern’s War Years,” Oct. 10, 1972.

32.     McGovern interview, Eisenhower Center.

33.     Watry, Washout!, 96-97.

34.     McGovern interview, Eisenhower Center.

35.     Barmore interview, Eisenhower Center.

36.     Watry, Washout!, 111-12.

37.     McGovern to Pennington, February 8, 1944, Dakota Wesleyan Library.

38.     McGovern interview, Eisenhower Center.

39.     Smith, Wouldn’t Change a Thing, 73-74.

40.     Watry, Washout!, 117-19.

41.     Barmore interview, Eisenhower Center.

42.     Watry, Washout!, 15.

43.     McGovern interview, Eisenhower Center.

44.     Anson, McGovern, 38.

45.     Watry, Washout!, 142-43.

46.     Reynolds, Belle of the Brawl, 18.

47.     Smith, Wouldn’t Change a Thing, 77.

48.     Craven and Cate, Men and Planes, xxxiv.

49.     Ibid.

CHAPTER THREE. LEARNING TO FLY THE B- 24

1.       McGovern interview, Eisenhower Center.

2.       Briefing: Journal of the International B-24 Liberator Club63, Winter 1997, p.

15.

3.       Anson, McGovern, 39.

4.       Craven and Cate, Men and Planes, xx, xxix, xxxvii.

5.       These figures are for model B-24D and are taken from Davis,B-24 Liberator in Action, 4-6, 17. See also Frederick A. Johnsen,B-24 Liberator.

6.       Craven and Cate, Men and Planes, 207.

7.       McGovern interview, Eisenhower Center.

8.       Craven and Cate, Men and Planes, 566-78.

9.       Walter Hughes, A Bomber Pilot in World War II: From Farm Boy to Pilot.

10.     Donald R. Currier,50 Mission Crush, 5.

11.     McGovern interview, Eisenhower Center.

12.     Smith, Wouldn’t Change a Thing, 77-78.

13.     McGovern to Pennington, November 8 and 15, 1943, Dakota Wesleyan Library.

14.     McGovern to Pennington, December 28, 1943, Dakota Wesleyan Library.