Second Bombardment Association

The following is a book review of "Shot At and Missed" which describes it as one

"Mighty By Sacrifice"

(the story of Mission 263, August 29, 1944)

by James L. Noles & James L. Noles, Jr.

The Second Bombardment Group -- and, in particular, the 20th Squadron -- is the subject of a book being published by the University of Alabama Press.

Mighty by Sacrifice: The Destruction of an American Bomber Squadron, August 29, 1944, is slated to arrive in book stores in late July 2009.

It is currently available for purchase on-line,

http://www.uapress.ua.edu/NewSearch2.cfm?id=133907

and can also be ordered directly from the University of Alabama Press at

800-621-2736 or 773-702-7000.

It is also available from Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Mighty-Sacrifice-Destruction-American-Squadron/dp/081731654X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251768234&sr=8-1

Mighty by Sacrifice tells the story of the Group's ill-fated mission to bomb an oil refinery and railroad marshaling yard in Moravska Ostrava, Czechoslovakia, in 1944. The 20th Squadron, 2nd Bombardment Group, dispatched seven bombers to participate in the raid. All seven, however, were shot down by German fighters, as were several other bombers.

Mighty by Sacrifice focuses on several of the airmen on this mission, thereby providing a remarkable personal window into the Allies’ Combined Bomber Offensive at its height during WWII. In a microcosm, their stories encapsulate how the U.S. Army Air Force built, trained, and employed one of the mightiest war machines ever seen. Their stories also illustrate, however, the terrible cost in lives demanded by that same machine.

Veterans interviewed for the book include Loy Dickinson, the late Bill Garland, Jim Martin, the late Willard Netzley, Joseph Owsianik, Duane Seaman, Ed Smith, Paul Sumner, the late Bill Tune, and Leo Zupan. Familes of other veterans and casualties of the mission were also interviewed.

The book has already garnered high praise in academic circles. "This is a great story that deserves to be told," said Stephen L. McFarland, the coauthor of To Command the Sky: The Battle for Air Superiority over Germany, 1942–1944. "The authors do such a wonderful job of relating the terror and speed of aerial combat.”

The book is authored by James L. Noles, Jr., and his father, James L. Noles.

Noles, Jr., is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and is an attorney in Birmingham, Alabama. He is also the author of last year's A Pocketful of History: Four Hundred Years of American -- One State Quarter at a Time and 2004's Twenty-Three Minutes to Eternity: The Final Voyage of the Escort Carrier USS Liscome Bay (also published by the University of Alabama Press).

Noles' co-author and father is a retired Army officer who currently resides in Florence, Alabama.

The title, Noles explains, comes from a line in Rudyard Kipling's poem "The Islanders," which reads in part, "Cleansed of servile panic, slow to dread or despise. Humble because of knowledge, mighty by sacrifice."

Both authors credit the gracious assistance they received in researching this book from the mission's veterans and their families. "It simply would have been impossible to write this book without them," they said, "and we certainly hope that we honored their and their loved ones' legacy and sacrifice with our work. Frankly, that was our main goal."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-oped0828americaaug28,0,4268113.story