Title: Fighter Group: The 352nd "Blue Nosed Bastards" in World War II
Author: Jay A. Stout
Publisher: Stackpole Books
Publication Date: 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8117-0577-6
Have you ever wondered what it was like to be a member of a World War II fighter group? Author Jay A. Stout, whose previous "The Men Who Killed The Luftwaffe" is the best one-book source on the air war in Europe, is more interested in telling the story of who served in the top-scoring 352nd Fighter Group than he is in reciting a list of their accomplishments, the way so much of what passes for "military history" does. A former combat fighter pilot himself (USMC, Desert Storm), Stout knows what the important questions are to ask, and he got the answers from the surviving members of the group, and from the letters and diaries that were made available to him.
Far from being the kind of story where everyone is a stirring example of heroism and derring-do, "Fighter Group" names names of those leaders who didn't lead, confirming in so doing the achievements of men like Deputy Group Commander John C. Meyers, who almost single-handedly carried the group on his own shoulders, serving a group commander whose leadership will not be found compared to that of Hub Zemke or Don Blakeslee.
Stout was able to interview all the surviving pilots of the epic January 1, 1945 "Battle of Asch" in which 12 pilots caught on the ground just before takeoff by the Luftwaffe's "Operation Bodenplatte" were able to claw their way into the air and do battle literally over the heads of their ground crews, in so doing bringing new information to the well-known story.
George Preddy became the leading Mustang ace of history, but his actions out of the cockpit and off the base are equally interesting. Other young men of the group are also given three-dimensional description in ways most books don't even know to try, let alone accomplish.
The reviewer at "Air & Space" Magazine called this "the most interesting and original history of a World War II air group ever written." He's right.
If you read this, you'll discover a lot more blue-nosed Mustangs appearing in your collection.
