Back from 44: The Sacrifice and Courage of a Few

Far less in known of the Marauder and the airmen who flew it, so I was pleased to find this book about the B-26. The military service of Nick Bentas is featured. The operational life in a B-26 bomb group comes to life.
One surprising difference from B-17 groups was that most B-26 units didn’t have crews stay together. Instead of forming cohesive teams, the men were regularly assigned to other planes.
This book would have benefited from a good editing. There is repetition between the narrative and journal entries. Maybe it was the kindle version I read, but the punctuation was atrocious. It was easy to skim across problems and stay in the story.
I thought the book was written by Nick Bentas, as it is told in the first person, and with a kindle, I could not readily check the front cover. It was written by his nephew, Nick Cressy. It is a novelized account based on personal journals, official reports, and insight from Bentas’ friends. The ending was a surprise, thinking it was written by Bentas. Without revealing the outcome, I felt too much may have been assumed about the crew’s state of mind on their last mission.
Nevertheless, it is an interesting book and I’m glad I read it. I received a free copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

At first glance this appears to be a daily diary kept by a crew members of the B25 Bomber Group. The details are meticulous and give a very real insight into the brave Americans who got involved in WW2 without a thought to their own comfort or future.
Far from home, in appalling weather and poor accommodation, they flew many missions. Some to certain death in a foreign land and some to see out the war as P.O.Ws.
A very good insight into the day-to-day operation of a bomber group.

As the son of a WWII fighter pilot and with a background in military aviation myself, I am drawn to books that describe real action of those brave men who served with the Allied Air Forces. This book did not disappoint. The way one mans' story is recounted is original in that it takes the phrase 'my life flashed before me' to a new level of detail. as you read the book, you are drawn into that frightening world of the wartime recruited airman who faced danger on each mission, lost comrades and friends yet continued to carry out his duties as ordered. Today when I speak to the 21st century younger generation and try to define loyalty, I use the examples of the men in this and similar tales as an testimony to loyalty and duty. The book pulls no punches in the descriptions of men's' fears and reactions to the world of combat aviation and this is necessary to convey to the reader the real life experiences these men went through. It also is a tribute to those men and we should not forget what they sacrificed for our generation.