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Informationen zum Autor Norman “Bud” Fortier was born in New Hampshire in 1922. In January 1942 he joined the Army Air Corps and became a fighter pilot assigned to the Eighth Air Force’s famed 355th Fighter Group. He flew 113 missions and rose to squadron command. He is officially credited with 5.8 aerial combat victories during the war. After the war Fortier graduated from the University of New Hampshire and went on to fly for Northwest Orient Airlines. Recalled to active duty in 1947 for the Berlin Airlift, he remained in the air force. After retiring from the air force in 1964 as a lieutenant colonel, he became an elementary school teacher and principal. Klappentext FOR A FIGHTER PILOT IN THE MIGHTY EIGHTH, DEATH WAS ALWAYS A HEARTBEAT AWAY. When the skies of Europe blazed with the fiercest air battles in history, fighter pilots like Norman "Bud” Fortier were in the thick of it, flying four hundred miles an hour at thirty thousand feet, dodging flak and dueling with Nazi aces. In their role as "escorts” to Flying Fortresses and Liberators, the fighter squadrons' ability to blast enemy aircraft from the sky was key to the success of pinpoint bombing raids on German oil refineries, communication and supply lines, and other crucial targets. Flying in formation with the bomber stream, Fortier and the rest of his squadron helped develop dive-bombing and strafing tactics for the Thunderbolts and Mustangs. As the war progressed, fighter squadrons began to carry out their own bombing missions. From blasting V-1 missile sites along France's "rocket coast” and the hell-torn action of D day to the critical attacks on the Ruhr Valley and massive daylight raids on German industrial targets, Fortier was part of the Allies' bitter struggle to bring the Nazi war machine to a halt. In describing his own hundred-plus missions and by including the accounts of fellow fighter pilots, Fortier recaptures the excitement and fiery terror of the world's most dangerous cat-and-mouse game. Leseprobe Flight Training On January 21, 1942, I raised my right hand at the army recruiting center in Manchester, New Hampshire, and was inducted into the U.S. Army Air Corps as a flying cadet. I didn't look closely at the "Agreement to Serve" I signed. I agreed to serve for "the duration of the war plus six months," but I also agreed that I would not marry while still a cadet. According to my pre-induction physical, I was 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighed 135 pounds. The finality of what I had done was beginning to sink in. I was alone, and for the first time in my life, cut off from the security of home and family-and I was scared. Within two hours, I was on my way to Maxwell Field in Montgomery, Alabama, along with Clarence (Bo) Beauregard from Marlborough, New Hampshire; Maurice (Moe) Cashman from Franklin, New Hampshire; Jim Owens from Haverhill, Massachusetts; and Henry J. (Hank) Pascho from Somerville, Massachusetts. At twenty-six, Bo was the oldest of the group; at nineteen, I was the youngest. We didn't get to know each other until after we changed trains in Washington, D.C., and found ourselves in adjoining berths on the Seaboard Atlantic Railroad headed south. We had two small compartments, each with pull-down bunks and enough room to sit around and socialize before bedtime. We were playing cards early that evening in one of the compartments when someone suggested that we might be able to get a bottle of whiskey from the porter. "I'll see what I can do at the next station," he promised. After the next stop, we had a rather expensive bottle of rotgut whiskey and a bottle of ginger ale to help chase it down. I was out of my element. I was not a drinker. I hadn't had anything stronger than a glass of wine in my life. But I was now in the army. And army people drank liquor. So I had a few whiskeys and ginger ale, and soon the small compartment became a more ...
