 The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s over Germany [UNABRIDGED] - Just finished this one yesterday. Good, semi-light reading for WWII history buffs out there. But if you're a Stephen E. Ambrose fan, don't expect another Eisenhower or (from what I've heard) Undaunted Courage as this book just doesn't even begin to match up with those.
Still, I did learn a great deal about America's role in defeating NAZI Germany with strategic bombing. The book gave me a glimpse of what the B-24 meant to the men flying the machines delivering that blow as well as some perspective of those on the other side of the bombs.
ADDENDUM: In the book, Stephen dicusses the fate of *the* one remaining B-24 that is flying still. It belongs to a historical preservation group that maintains the plane and makes rounds to airfields across the country along with a restored B-17.
A number of years ago, this pair flew into our local county airstrip which was just barely long enough to accommodate the planes. There my daughter, who was four at the time, and I got to experience the two planes up close and as luck would have it, an inside tour of the B-17. I was totally struck by how small the plane was internally and how there were absolutely no efforts made comfort wise for the crews flying them.
I'm one the those mentioned in the book as 'glamorizing' the B-17, which was in many ways an inferior aircraft to the Liberator, but that day in '95 changed all that. As I watched the B-24 warm up it's engines and prepare to taxi for takeoff and a fly-by of the airstrip, I was awestruck by the power of the prop wash and the smell of the burning fuel in the air. And as it roared down the runway, something clicked metally and I realized that this 'glamorous' beast was an instrument of war.
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