books

[pipz]

You got to meet Guther Rall!!!!...ooo im jealous,excuse me while I eat my liver As much as I am into all this I have never actualy met a WW2 fighter pilot.I oughta make a point of it before its too late.Rall still looks good even in 2003.I hope I age so well,lookin in the mirror now though...I doubt it heheh

BTW in that link at the top theres a picture of Rall sitting at a table.What is that fury thing jumping up on to the table?Some kind of small ugly Finnish Lap Dog???

Have a happy new year!..Kippis!!
Pipz

[Panzzer]

Originally posted by pipz
You got to meet Guther Rall!!!!...ooo im jealous,excuse me while I eat my liver As much as I am into all this I have never actualy met a WW2 fighter pilot.I oughta make a point of it before its too late.Rall still looks good even in 2003.I hope I age so well,lookin in the mirror now though...I doubt it heheh

BTW in that link at the top theres a picture of Rall sitting at a table.What is that fury thing jumping up on to the table?Some kind of small ugly Finnish Lap Dog???

Have a happy new year!..Kippis!!
Pipz

LOL, that's the microphone. Rall's visit was televised - that was part of the tv crew equipment.

Rall was an extremely nice gentleman, I'm happy to have met him. These are the finest occasions that happen due to interest in WWII aviation.

Kippis, Pipz, it's already 2006 here.. And a happy new year to all!

[Guppy35]

"Nanette"  by Edwards Park

Of all the fighter pilot books I've read over the years, this is still my absolute favorite.

He talks about his time with the 41st FS, 35th FG 5th AF flying P39s in the Pacific.    And he talks about his 'love affair' with his Cobra, named "Nanette"

Great book about the average Joes flying in WW2.  He's not a great pilot, his plane is lousy but he's kinda crazy about her, he's scared most if not all of the time, and he's just trying to survive.

 A bit different from the Aces stories


"The Look of Eagles" by Johnny Godfrey is probably a close second.  He flew Jugs and 51s with the 4th FG out of England.


"Serenade to the Big Bird" by Bert Stiles would be my favorite about bombers.  It was written during the war by Stiles who was a co-pilot on 17s with the 91st BG in England.  He was killed in November 44 flying a P51 with the 339th FG.

Something about it really captures the time.  He, like Park, is an average at best pilot, doing the best he could while paying attention to what's going on in the world around him and putting it all into some sort of perspective.

[Grayeagle]

Blonde Knight of Germany is great.

Stuka by Hans Rudel is also good.

Fighter Pilot by Harold Robbins is some great fiction, and for a change of pace, read HMS Ulysses (think I spelled it right) ..fiction about a heavy cruiser on the North Atlantic runs.. cat launch hurricane and all.

'Peice of Cake' ..must read. Truly great fiction, but characters are right on the money along with the character of the early days over Britain. The sequel is also just as good ..P-40's in Africa in the early days.

Another nice read is 'Blazing (may be Brazen) Chariots' ..true story of british tankers in the Stuart light tanks in the early days against the Afrika corps. Big Brass Ones.

To fly and fight by 'Andy' Anderson (ya.. Yeager was his dweeb wingman)

First and the Last is kinda dry ..good when its good tho.
Galland got shoved into admin early on and dint get to fly combat as much as he wanted to.

I dont know of a good book about Moelders ..would love to find one.

Then there's that bohemian, the virtuoso of fighter pilots, Marseilles flyin for the Afrika Corps.

Thunderbolt is a great one.
Just don't come here an start ranting about how the P-47 should out dive, out climb, out turn everything ok?

Wing Leader is excellent. John E. Johnson climbed the ranks fast from spit dweeb to leader of spit dweebs (firmly tongue in cheek ..he was a great fighter pilot)

There's a great book about the 100th bomb group ..and how they earned the nickname 'The Bloody Hundredth' ..I cant remember the name of it and its packed away somewhere .. was written by their lead navigator, Mr. Chase I b'lieve.

I envy you a bit .. you are about to read some great stuff

-GE (had almost all the books ..need to get that one about Rall)

[Bodhi]

GE,

Great choices!

Blond Knight was an excellent insight into Hartmann's life as a combat pilot.

I Flew for the Fuhrer was also great, although a bit drier than Hartmann's biography.

JG-26 - At work, can remember author

Fate is the Hunter, enjoyed that back in college!

I'd like to suggest a couple others that I enjoyed as well.

A Question of Honor - Lynne Olsen and Stanley Cloud (Absolutely shocking portrayal of the war from their point of view, MUST READ!)

WolfPack (56th FG) do not have the book as Maverick has yet to return it, so I can't give u the author!

Wings of Gold - Gerald Astor

Fire in the Sky - Regerud (Gets dry at times but very comprehensive coverage of SoPAC portion of the war)

Fight for the Sky - Douglas Bader  (Excellent)

Spitfire! - Robert Jackson (A must read)

I have some more at works, will put them together for you at a later date!

[Brooke]

Excellent recommendations!  Here are some I don't think have been mentioned yet.

TOP GUNS, by Joe Foss and Matthew Brennan.  First-hand dogfighting accounts by a selection of pilots from WWI to Vietnam.  Excellent.

Zemke's Wolfpack: The 56th Fighter Group in World War II, by William N. Hess.  Stories of Hub Zemke, Robert Johnson, Francis Gabreski, etc.

Samurai, by  Saburo Sakai, Martin Caido, Fred Saito.  Accounts of Sakai, who was Japan's leading surviving ace.

Fork-Tailed Devil : The P-38, by Martin Caidin.  A book about the plane and war accounts of flying it.

On the more technical side:

America's Hundred Thousand: U.S. Production Fighters of World War II,
by Francis H. Dean.  Wonderful, amazing book with enormous technical detail on US WWII fighters.

[Sable]

I haven't read "Dumb but Lucky", but if I were to get a book by a P-51 pilot it would be either "Mustang Ace" by Bob Goebel, or "To Fly and Fight" by Bud Anderson.  Both are very well written - they give you a sense of being there in the cockpit and keep you wrapped up in the story.  They also provide some good technical detail, and have lots of descriptions of combat (11 kills for Goebel and 16 for Anderson I believe).  Better yet, get both.

I can't say I really liked "I Flew for the Fuhrer".  The typical dogfight sequence would describe the same fighter as a lightning in one sentance, a mustang in the next, and a thunderbolt in the sentance after that.  The whole book seemed to go in this fashion.  My guess is that a lot was lost in translation.  

"The Blonde Knight" was ok, but not really captivating - it sort of feels like reading a newspaper story about an event, rather then hearing it told first hand by the person who was there.  Galland's book "The First and the Last" and Rudell's book "Stuka" both read like this as well IMO.  
 
I recently got "Alert in the West" (by Willi Heilmann I believe).  Writing and translation seemed much better then the others I mentioned - however there are some questionable parts.  For instance, the author describes III/JG54 taking part in operation bodenplatte, and talks about how perfectly their mission went, and how they destroyed hundreds of aircraft on the ground for no loss.  If one reads about this same event in Donald Caldwell's "JG26: Top Guns of the Luftwaffe" (which is a MUST read - one of the best unit histories ever written) it appears that most of the III/JG54 formation was downed by ground fire, and the airfield they struck was closed (big X's painted on the runways) with only a few aircraft sitting there.  

So far I'm still hunting for a really great Luftwaffe autobiography.  If you want one book to read for the Luftwaffe, the best IMO is Caldwell's.  It's not an autobiography, but it has a number of first hand accounts taken from the pilots writings and interviews.  It is also very well researched and balanced.

"Fate is the hunter" is a great read, lots of scary battles with icing and thunderstorms.

[Guppy35]

Sable, track down a book by a 190 driver called "Betrayed Skies".  It's a novel but  the author had flown with the Luftwaffe in WW2 so it's based on his experiences if the author's description is accurate.

Rudolf Braunburg is the author.

It's kind of the LW version of "Nanette" by Edwards Park.  He's an average pilot, trying to survive and deal with all that's going on around him.  You can tell he loves flying the 190

[Simaril]

Just finished In My Sights by James Morehead. Very good read, with an unusual pespective. The guy just missed being shipped into the Phillipines (and thus just missed getting to be a rifleman and POW), but he flew in Java and elsewhere while the Zero ran rampant. Seeing buddies go down all around him, hearing about atrocities, feeling completely outclassed in skill and machine -- not surprisingly he has a darker feel than most US pilots. He was definitely NOT in love with the P-40, which he called "a pile of junk" -- but he managed to become an ace in 1942 regardless.

Later went to ETO rather than take a command position in a P-39 unit, and flew P-38s. Absolutely loved the bird, but felt heavily shackled by restrictions from HQ.

Ended war with 2x DSC and a DFC, plus eight confirmed kills. (Had others that didnt get confirmed -- early in war the wingman/flight element concept wasnt emphasized, and he felt let down by failure to spread tactical knowledge as it was developed.)

[MajWoody]

I thought "The blonde Knight Of Germany" was an excelent read.

 also liked "An Ace Of The Eighth"      Norman "Bud" Fortier" was pretty good.


 Just ordered Caldwells book, Top Guns of the Luftwaffe

Looking forward to reading it.