Book description
This wartime biography follows the life of a Second World War B-17
bombardier from the beginning of the war to its conclusion. Based on
the 150 letters the airman, Fred Lull, wrote home to his mother, much
of the horror of what he experienced of the wing of his plane,
aircraft destroyed, dismemberment by flak, go unshared. Fred did not
want his mother to worry and could not tell her: "I noticed some
movement and a flash of light out of the corner of my right eye. The
plane that had been flying right next to us had exploded and simply
disappeared." Using the bombardier's combat flight record,
research data and interviews of former B-17 crewmembers, the story
unfolds, breaking through the barrier of an unwillingness and
inability to tell loved ones of the smell and taste of war.
