1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910959765603321

Autore

Grilley Robert <1920->

Titolo

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

Pubbl/distr/stampa

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

ISBN

9781283906579

1283906570

9780299185039

0299185036

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (206 p.)

Disciplina

940.54/4973/092

B

Soggetti

World War, 1939-1945

World War, 1939-1945 - Aerial operations, American

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

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di contenuto

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.

Sommario/riassunto

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.