I recently read the book authored by renowned historian Stephen Ambrose titled The Wild Blue: The men and boys who flew the B-24’s over Germany, which encompassed the journey of these young men. From start to finish Ambrose gave a great overall view of the trials and tribulations one would go through being a pilot or a crew member on a B-24 during WWII. The book focused primarily on the 741st squadron 455th bomb group. But in particular it focused on one of its pilots, Lt. George McGovern. While at times this book almost felt like a war biography of McGovern, it did touch on various other crew members and gave a great overall view of these boys journey from their early life to time spent overseas fighting. The book starts off by taking you through the background of these young men showing their upbringing. The majority of them came from humble beginnings and spent their adolescent life in small rural towns in America. Most were still teens when they enlisted and began their training. Ambrose commented on their age by saying that while someone that age today may be lucky enough to be handed the keys to the family car they were being sent off to defend the country. These boys generally were from blue color households in small towns and had previously never even been aboard a plane much less flown or navigated one. Once enlisted as potential pilots they were sent to flight training school. I found this portion as well as the first half of the book to be very slow. This was mainly due to the fact that Ambrose gave a back story on pretty much every character that appeared in the beginning of the book. This included flight instructors and secondary characters that only made brief appearances and then were never mentioned again. The back stories did help to better understand where each character was coming from but after awhile it made the book feel a little lackluster. Many of the early training stories while informative were similar to one another and after a few of them they began to feel redundant. To me reading some of the early life and training portions of the book felt slow. In actuality what these boys went through in real life was quite the opposite. Training was very difficult and they faced many dangers, which unfortunately on occasion resulted in the death due to accidents during training flights. Just flying the B-24 was a task all in itself. It was considered the ugly duckling of the planes active in WWII because it was very bare boned when compared to other planes active at the time. The plane had no heat so the pilot was flying at high altitudes in cold weather bundled up in clothing to try and stay warm. These planes were bombers and not as easily maneuverable as fighter plans like the P-47, which over the years has garnished much more praise and publicity than the often forgot about B-24. B-24’s also had no power steering which meant the pilot had to use a significant amount of bodily strength to maneuver it, which during a long flight became exhausting. Because of this a large portion of the pilots training process consisted of calisthenics and other grueling physical fitness tests. But of all the physical requirements, the most prized was sight, especially if one wanted to be a pilot or navigator.
Becoming a pilot was most of these young men’s first choice when choosing a position. Those who washed out of the pilot training programs then went for another position on the plane such as co-pilot, radio operator, bombardier, navigator, or a gunnery position. While they viewed washing out of the program as somewhat of a disappointment all were still eager to pick a new position and get back into training. One individual after flushing out of the pilot program was asked what other position he would like to be. In response he asked which of his fallowing options had the shortest training program. That turned out to be the radio operator position. He was an intelligent individual and could have chosen a more challenging position than a radio operator. He didn’t because he was eager to graduate from a program and contribute to the war efforts. In more recent wars some people have ducked drafts or protested wars. So I admire these young men’s sense of pride for their. While I commend their patriotism and willingness to fight many also enlisted because they saw it as an opportunity to get out of the small towns they had spent their whole life in and see the world, which they did. The main character of the book was George McGovern, who like most of the characters in this book came from small town America. McGovern and his crew flew the plane, “The Dakota Queen”, and while throughout the book their physical plane wasn’t always the exact same one it was still always given that name. This was done in honor of McGovern’s wife back home. Home was a place McGovern and his crew was now far away from. They were stationed in Cerignola Italy, at which point the book began to pick up.
I found the base life to be one of the most interesting aspects of this book. Many times the details of base life is skipped over or only briefly touched upon. I have previously heard of the trench life for the foot soldiers during WWII and how bad they had it. So it was interesting to see another aspect of it. Their base was stationed in Italy and by the time they were deployed overseas Italy had already joined sides with the allies. The locals were very poor and eager for a job. Within weeks bases were constructed with help from Italians who were eager to earn a decent wage. Some men would also take their clothing into town for the women to wash in return they were paid or traded washes for supplies from the base. There was a major language and cultural barriers which were interesting to observe the locals and U.S. soldiers overcome.
By the time his crew got overseas the Nazi’s were on the defense. At their base in Italy they didn’t have to worry about an airborne attack being launched on their base. That piece of mind helped the men relax on their off days. Just because they were not in danger of being bombed while at their base in Italy does not mean that they were never in dangerous situations. One of the greatest dangers on a mission was what they referred to as “catching flack” which came from German anti aircraft guns. Flack could and did shoot down planes. Their main purpose was to fly from their base in Italy and bomb the Germans. They were usually given orders to bomb oil refineries, the US believed that by limiting their enemies oil supply would help slow them down and eventually lead the Germans surrender. At one point they were told to bomb bearing plants as that was seen as another way to cripple the Germans. McGovern and his crew were shot at but luckily were never shot down. Once they had to make an emergency landing but that was the closest call that the crew faced. They were required to fly 35 missions at which time their obligations to fight would be met and they would be allowed to return home. This obligation was eventually completed which happened around the time the Germans surrendered. McGovern and his crew members volunteered to stay overseas and help pick up allied soldiers. At times this book felt like a war biography of George McGovern but at the same time fallowing only one main character and his crew gave an accurate depiction of what a tour overseas would be like. As opposed to composing a book based on multiple pilots highlight reels. By reading this book I got an accurate depiction of what it was like for a WWII pilot and first person insight from those that lived it. I liked how Ambrose wove in interview quotes while still narrating and perpetuating the story. All in all I enjoyed this book as it presented me with a much different vantage point of fighting during WWII and Ambrose’s real to life writing style drew me in and made it feel as if I were there flying on the missions with McGovern and his crew. It was a good read and I’m happy I choose this book. It was very informative and entertaining which is a task not easily done by some historians. I look forward to reading another book from Ambrose collection in the future.