The Things Our Fathers Saw—The Untold Stories of the World War II Generation-Volume II: War in the Air—From the Great Depression to Combat
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The Things Our Fathers Saw—The Untold Stories of the World War II Generation-Volume II: War in the Air—From the Great Depression to Combat
HOW DO YOU THINK YOU FEEL when you wake up in a hospital and find out you killed your own mother?
JUST WHAT DO YOU DO in that moment when your plane's been hit, and you are about to crash far from home?
- “I spent a lot of time in hospitals. I had a lot of trouble reconciling how my mother died after reading the telegram she opened, saying I was shot down and missing in action; I didn't explain to her that ‘missing in action' is not necessarily ‘killed in action', you know? I didn't even think about that. How do you think you feel when you find out you killed your own mother?" -B-24 bombardier, shot down, taken prisoner Dying for freedom isn't the worst that could happen. Being forgotten is. - “I was in the hospital with a flak wound. The next mission, the entire crew was killed. The thing that haunts me is that I can't put a face to the guy who was a replacement. He was an 18-year old Jewish kid named Henry Vogelstein from Brooklyn. It was his first and last mission. He made his only mission with a crew of strangers." -B-24 navigator Maybe our veterans did not volunteer to tell us their stories; perhaps we were too busy with our own lives to ask. But they opened up to a younger generation, when a history teacher taught his students to engage. - “The German fighters picked us. I told the guys, ‘Keep your eyes open, we are about to be hit!' I saw about six or eight feet go off my left wing. I rang the ‘bail-out' signal, and I reached out and grabbed the co-pilot out of his seat. I felt the airplane climbing, and I thought to myself, ‘If this thing stalls out, and starts falling down backwards, no one is going to get out...'" -B-17 pilot As we forge ahead as a nation, do we owe it to ourselves to become reacquainted with a generation that is fast leaving us, who asked for nothing but gave everything, to attune ourselves as Americans to a broader appreciation of what we stand for? This is the second book in the masterful WWII oral history series, but you can read them in any order. - “You flew with what I would call ‘controlled fear'. You were scared stiff, but it was controlled. My ball turret gunner-he couldn't take it anymore… I guess he was right. He's dead now. But he had lost control of the fear. He never got out of that ball turret; he died in that ball turret." -B-24 bombardier It's time to listen to them. Read some of the reviews below and REMEMBER how a generation of young Americans truly saved the world.
Or maybe it was all for nothing?
- “A must-read in every high school in America. It is a very poignant look back at our greatest generation; maybe it will inspire the next one."
