Return from Berlin : the eye of a navigator / Robert Grilley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Grilley, Robert, 1920-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American.

World War, 1939-1945.

World War, 1939-1945--Aerial operations, American.

World War, 1939-1945--Regimental histories--United States.

United States. Army Air Forces--Officers--Biography.

United States.

United States. Army Air Forces. Bombardment Group (H), 401st--History.

Grilley, Robert, 1920-.

Grilley, Robert.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (206 p.)

Place of Publication:

Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press, c2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

During the summer of 1944, the now-legendary American Eighth Air Force was engaged in a ferocious air battle over Europe to bring the Allies victory over the German Third Reich. This is the story of one B-17 navigator and his crewmates, men who faced extraordinary danger with a maturity beyond their years. This vivid and detailed account of combat flying and its psychological toll also recalls the beginning of Robert Grilley's development as a painter of international renown, as he spends his off-duty time drawing the peaceful Northamptonshire landscape around Deenethorpe airbase. Wakened with flashlights on their faces in the predawn hours, he and his crew repeatedly face the Luftwaffe in battles five miles high, flying through flak "so thick you could get out and walk on it." Stretching their stamina to the limits, they succeed time after time in their missions to bomb munitions works, railyards, the Leüna synthetic oil plant at Merseburg in eastern Germany, the V2 rocket research center at Peenemünde on the distant Baltic Coast, and even to strike Hitler's capital city, Berlin. But Grilley finds interludes of unexpected grace and restoration on his days off, making serious drawings from nature at the neighboring Yokehill Farm. There he slowly cultivates a friendship with a curious eight-year-old, the lively child Elizabeth, who becomes for the combat flyer a symbol of survival.

Contents:

The 401st Bomb Group (H) in England at war

Paris in June: the first mission

Hamburg

Landscapes and Elizabeth

Berlin

Frevant

Montbartier

Leipzig I

Munich I and II

Leipzig II

Marlene Dietrich

Saint-Lô

Merseburg

Lead team

Nienburg and Kettering

Peenemünde

Berlin II

Good-bye, Elizabeth

Ludwigshafen

Ludwigshafen again

Groesbeek

Forgotten missions

Münster

Nürnberg

After the last bomb run

Back in the U.S.A.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

ISBN:

9781283906579

1283906570

9780299185039

0299185036

OCLC:

825768815