Author Description

This is a true story about, Staff Sergeant Bernard M. Tuvman, of Jewish descent, who enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps on August 31, 1941, shortly before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and propelling the United States into the Second World War. Dad wanted to be a pilot but when that didn't come to fruition, he was sent to gunnery school. Dad was assigned as a waist gunner on a B17 Flying Fortress and was assigned to the 388th Bomb Group, a division of the 560th Bomb Squadron. He and his crew of the Shedonwanna? were sent to an air base in Knettishall, England. At its peak strength in 1944, USAAF employed 450,000 Americans in Britain. Most will immediately think of fighter pilots or bomber crews, but the majority of USAAF's men and women were engaged on a much wider range of tasks, all of which were necessary to keep the aircraft flying. Nearly 30,000 never made it home. On September 6, 1943, the brave crew of Shedonwanna? departed on Mission 91 to bomb the Robert Bosch facilities that produced ball bearings and magnetos. This would turn out to be the most disastrous mission in the history of the Eighth Air Force. Dad's plane was shot down over Chartres, France by ace fighter pilot, Egon Mayer, flying his FW190, known as the "Butcher Bird." Dad managed to escape his spiraling plane, despite having to fight with a jammed escape door. He made it out just in time and parachuted to safety but was quickly captured and sent to an interrogation center. He'd spend the next 20 months as a POW at Stalags VIIA and XVIIB. The author explores the American architects of "Strategic Bombing," the Battle of Britain, and how the Nazi Regime was so well prepared at the onset of World War Two with their advanced fighter planes, well trained pilots, and radar technology that could have extinguished freedom as we knew it, had Hitler not made some poor decisions that cost Germany the war. This is a true story and the author is pleased to present h