Combat Crew: The Story of 25 Combat Missions Over Europe From the Daily Journal

What People Are Saying About Combat Crew: “I find your remarkable book, Combat Crew, engrossing. It’s one of the best records of aerial combat in World War II I’ve ever read, and I want to tell you how impressed I am.” -Charlton Heston, actor “Combat Crew was a very special experience for me to read. You certainly put it down the way it was.” -James Stewart, actor “The author flew on many of the most violent air raids flows by the United States 8th Air Force during World War II. Combat Crew gives the reader an accurate, dramatic, and firsthand, on-the-scene account of the way it was. It is a book that cannot be aside once started.” -George G. Shackley, Colonel, USAF (Retired), C.O., 533rd Squadron “John was kind enough to let me have a sneak preview of his manuscript, and it brought back a lot of old memories. He has a knack of relating our feelings and experiences in combat. It is a great book, and I recommend it highly.” -Lieutenant Colonel William Cahow (Colonel Cahow participated in most of the combat action that is described in this book.) “An accurate, gripping portrayal of a combat-crew member’s thoughts and actions while participating in twenty-five of the toughest missions flown by the 8th Air Force over Europe. A genuine account of aerial warfare from the top turret of a B-17.” -Lieutenant Colonel Stuart S. Watson, C.O., 533rd Squadron DESCRIPTION: Combat Crew is one of the best memoirs about the air war over Europe ever written. John Comer kept a journal of the twenty-five missions he flew in 1943 when the casualty rate on his base was close to 80%. After each raid Comer gathered the crew together and pieced together the air battle from a 360-degree perspective. His book is handwritten history, recorded within hours after the battles occurred. Comer vividly creates his experiences as top-turret gunner/flight engineer in a B-17 Squadron that was thrown against the best pilots the Luftwaffe could offer. In 1943 the Germans were more experienced than the Americans and the Army Air Force had no long-range fighters to protect the B-17’s as they flew deep into enemy territory. That Comer survived is a testament to his crew’s skill and his luck; his 533d Squadron (8th Air Force, 1st Division, 381st Group) lost three out of every four men on combat status during the six months Comer flew his first twenty-five missions. Comer’s powerful narrative is devoted to the men who flew the planes, dropped the bombs, and fired the guns. Their everyday life was filled with terror, friendship, and fatigue. Comer recorded it all in his diary. The reader shares the fears of flight crew as they wonder if their heavily loaded bomber can actually lift off the runway. Many planes didn’t make it. Then there are the freezing temperatures in unheated planes--63 degrees below zero with the bomb-bay doors open and 200 M.P.H. winds blowing through the aircraft. There are missed targets, faulty equipment, red-hot shrapnel from antiaircraft fire, and what it was like to look German fighter pilots in the eye as they barreled in with cannons blazing. Above all, there is the horror of watching friends being shot down on every bomb run--no matter how “easy” the mission might have been. Immediate, straightforward, compelling, Combat Crew is destined to become a classic of aerial warfare.