Charles R. Reyher

Broschiertes Buch

Memoirs of a B-29 Pilot

Beschreibung

"Memoirs of a B-29 Pilot" chronicles the author's wartime experiences leading up to and as a B-29 Superfortress Aircraft Commander.. He was engaged in the Air Offensive-Japan from the Marianas Islands in the South Pacific. He looks back at those experiences from the professional view of a retired airline captain, having flown over 35 years of service with Trans World Airlines. After graduation as a pilot cadet, he became a bomb approach pilot at a bombardier training base for one year. Then, rated as a B-17 Flying Fortress 1st Pilot, he spent six months duty as a B-17 instructor pilot at an airbase training new B-17 crews as replacements for the 8th Air Force in England. Many months of training to be a B-29 Aircraft Commander followed. He arrived at newly constructed Northwest Field, Guam, in early June 1945. 125 factory-new B-29B Superfortresses made up the new 315th Very Heavy Bomb Wing. He and his crew flew 13 missions before the end of the war, all against oil targets. In addition to covering his wartime service, the author concludes the book with several chapters detailing various aspects of the air war against Japan and how he believes attacking Japan's oil refineries and supplies could have ended the war even without the use of the atomic bombs. 183 photographs, documents, drawings and illustrations. A Merriam Press World War 2 Memoir.

Autor

Former Major Charles R. Reyher was an Aircraft Commander of a B-29B Superfortress with the Guam-based 315th Very Heavy Bomb Wing of the 20th Air Force. The 315th Wing consisted of 125 B-29Bs. The Wing arrived on Guam in June 1945 with 12,000 support personnel, and saw constant action in the "Air Offensive-Japan", until Japan's surrender by radio on 15 August 1945. The B-29Bs were special aircraft, stripped of all guns except for a tail cannon, but with a top secret radar bombing system aboard. Shortage of fuel had caused the rapid collapse of Germany, and the Wing's mission, which was the destruction of the Japanese oil refineries and storage facilities, would help bring Japan to her knees. This is the story of one pilot's experience as a part of the 315th that flew only at night, and not in formation, and bombed by single precision attacks. This Wing flew the last and longest mission of World War II and became the subject of a book and a TV documentary. After the war, the author capitalized on his three and a half year World War II experience by serving as an airline captain with Trans World Airlines for 35 years. He was qualified on all of TWA's routes, domestic, international and around the world. He retired as Captain on the world's largest airliner, the Jumbo B-747, in 1982.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Lulu.com
• Seitenzahl: 356
• Erscheinungstermin: 3. September 2020
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 229mm x 152mm x 19mm
• Gewicht: 516g
• ISBN-13: 9781716606298
• ISBN-10: 1716606292
• Artikelnr.: 60179337