WWII book

[Chaos68]

Im looking for a great WWII plane book. Something that is a story of a real pilot in WWII.

I need something to read at work but i dont want to get a crapy book.

[MrBill]

Joseph Heller ("Catch 22") was a spit pilot and wrote a book about his flying days in W.W.II.  How he was shot down in flames, recovered and flew again.  I do not have the name of the book right off hand but you could prolly find it on the net somewhere.  For me it was a real page turner.  I also enjoyed Erik Hartmans book and "Samurai" by Saburo Sakai (I think that it is out of print however.)  Also "a Piece of cake" is excellent, do not remember the author off hand.

[Kratzer]

You will have a hard time finding a better one than Robert Johnson's 'Thunderbolt!'

go here to read excerpts and order

[GRUNHERZ]

Saburo Sakai's "Samurai" is one of the best and is prolly my favorite even tho im a LW type.

Erich Hartmann's "Blond Knight" is great too, as is Heinz Knoke's "I flew for the Fuhrer" Adolf Galland's "The First and the Last" is great too.

I also liked Bud Anderson's "To Fly and Fight" book very much.

But Sakai's is really my favorite for some reason, perhaps especially as he died just shortly after I read the book last year.

[Bluefish]

I recently listened to "The Big Show" by Pierre Clostermann on tape (rented from Books on Tape), and thought it was possibly the best narrative on WWII air combat I'd ever encountered.  Clostermann was a Spit pilot initially, and after a period out of operations at Free French HQ returned to fly Tiffies and Tempests.  He ended the war as one of the RAF's ranking aces.  Lots of great descriptions of low level attacks and fights with both 109s and 190s (which, interestingly, he encountered in significant numbers right up to the last day of the war).  Some interesting views on a number of subjects, including Operation Bodenplatte, which he claimed was a much more serious setback for the Allies than is generally recognized.

Don't know how hard it is to find in print, but it would be worth the effort.

[Cuba]

I agree with Grunherz about "Samurai!". It's one of my favorites too.  No one's mentioned "Baa Baa Black Sheep", by Pappy Boyington, so I might as well.  It's a classic.

One book I would like to recommend
is "Terror in the Starboard Seat", by Dave McIntosh.  McIntosh was a Royal Canadian Air Force navigator who flew 41 Mosquito missions during WW2.  

One reason I enjoyed it was that I just haven't found that many books about Mosquito's, and it was interesting to read a first hand account of what they did. (I guess vulching IS a legitimate combat manuever.  They would circle enemy fields at night, and prey upon landing airplanes.)

The main reason though is the author's honesty and humor give the book an interesting tone.  It's funny, tragic and cynical.  I guess it's similar to "Baa Baa Black Sheep" in that way.  I got the book from my local library, but it's available at Amazon.

Here's the Amazon review.  The subtitle of the review is "Canadians are Different"  

[Boroda]

"Blond Knight" is the worst piece of a cold war propaganda crap I have ever read.

American "writers" who compiled that masterpiece of dr. Goebels's propaganda decided that it is OK to picture nazis as "brave warriors who tried to save Europe from asian hordes of jewish bolsheviks".

[AKSWulfe]

http://www.historicaviation.com/historicaviation/product_info.po?ID=1846

Helmut Lipfert's War Diary.
-SW