Selected Product:
| Dumb but Lucky!: Confessions of a P-51 Fighter Pilot in World War II
Mass Market
Edition: 1st
Author: Richard Curtis
Publisher: Presidio Press
Release Date: 2005-06-28
ISBN-10: 0345476360
ISBN-13: 9780345476364
List Price: $7.99
Average Customer Rating:
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A Family of Poems: My Favorite Poetry for Children
ISBN-10: 0786851112
ISBN-13: 9780786851119
List Price:$19.95
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Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Second lieutenant Dick Curtis arrived in Italy in May 1944–twenty years old and part of a shipment of P-51 Mustang fighter pilots so desperately needed that they were rushed into combat with less than thirty hours of flight time in their new high-performance aircraft.
Six of the twelve pilots assigned to the 52nd Fighter Group were shot down in the first two weeks. By his ninth mission, Curtis was the only one still flying. A maverick, he barely escaped court-martial with his high-flying antics. Escorting bombers sent to pound heavily defended oil fields was risky enough, but strafing the enemy supply lines, ports, and airfields was even more dangerous. Curtis may chalk up his success to dumb luck, but these missions took exceptional skill and courage. This hair-raising account captures the air war in all its split-second terror and adrenaline-pumping action.
Good Read about How it Really Was
| Customer Rating: | This is an easy read and goes into much detail on what daily lives were like from being an air cadet to being in combat. For those who want to get a vicarious description of a WW2 pilot this is highly recommended.
I also agree with the author's opinion that being a bomber pilot was so much less desirable to being a fighter pilot. The bravery of bomber pilots cannot be overstated in WW2 and yet they in effect won both the European and Pacific theaters.
The policy of taking raw pilots out of advanced training in AT6s and the throwing them into combat was planned murder in my opinion but then again I was not there and do not know all the details but wasting such assets seems so callus on the surface. |
Dumb But Lucky writer
| Customer Rating: | | This was not an easy read. The writer is so proud of his status as a maverick, that it invades the whole book, and makes one wonder why he wrote it at all. Compared to the Red Badge of Courage, or All Quiet on the Western Front, Saving Private Ryan, etc. it is an almost silly attempt to describe his experiences as a P51 pilot. He should have been court marshalled. |
Great account from an ignored theater of operations.
| Customer Rating: | | I am a big fan of this book. The author was a human guinea pig who was sent to a front line fighter group with minimal training, as the government wanted to see how little training pilots could receive and still be effective and survive. This is not the usual account of a figher pilot, who normally tells you exactly how good he was. He candidly informs you how unprepared he was. The title says it all. I am also glad to hear about a unit and theater of war that is not often written about or published. The Eighth Airforce and the Fifteenth Airforce were partners that worked together to keep the enemy off balance. Together they did much to finish Nazi Germany. The Mighty Eighth is well covered in many books, especially a handful of groups. You could fit all that is written on the fifteenth on a short shelf. I found the author engaging and humorous. He also helps you see the ugly side of war, even though he flies the "glamorous" P-51 Mustang. |
Humble hero of the "Greatest Generation"
| Customer Rating: | | The author served in the same fighter squadron as the man that I was later named after, who like many others gave the ultimate sacrifice. I found this book very enlightening, because it is not just a recount of the military strategy and the tactics of air battles, but a broad description of the culture, technology, training and hardships of a very young man doing his patriotic duty with honor. Mr Curtis reveals some of the reckless and foolish things that he and others did, and the lucky and un-lucky pilots that he served with. His colorful descriptions of the pilot's life in P-51 Mustangs and in Italy paint an vivid picture. The long-distance love story with his one-and-only Myrt adds another dimension. |
Love those Mustangs
| Customer Rating: | | This is a well-written book with all the fears, mishaps and accomplishments of the young men who gave so much for us to be free! |
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