"Mighty By Sacrifice"
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
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
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