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Seller's Description:
Near Fine in Very Good jacket. Size: 8vo-over 7; Publisher: Regnery History, 2018. First Edition. Hardcover Book and Dust Jacket in Very Good Condition. Capt. George Starks, WWII B-17 Pilot The Mighty Eighth. Foreword by Lt. Gen. E. G. "Buck" Shuler, Jr., Former Commander English Air Force. Book is bound in black cloth with silver title to spine, very clean and unmarked, faint rubbing to lower edge, ever-so-sight compression of upper corner tips, remainder mark to lower edge of text block. Internals as new. A story of Adventure, Loyalty, and Brotherhood. On March 16, 1944 Lt George Starks and the nine-man crew of his Flying Fortress headed for Germany assigned to "coffin corners', the most exposed position in the bomber formation. They never got there. Shot down over Nazi-occupied France, the airmen bailed and scattered over the countryside in the farmland of Champagne. This is their story--the one who got safely across the border, Capt. George W. Starks, and the nine crewmen who faced injury, betrayal, captivity, hunger--and all came home safely at the end of the war. George Starks stayed in touch with his crew whatever the obstacles and returned to France to thank those to whom he owed his life. 320 pages. 8vo. 2018, Regnery History.
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Seller's Description:
Very good in Very good jacket. xxi, [1], 266 pages. Maps. Illustrations (some in color). Notes. Index. Black mark on bottom edge. Foreword by Lt. Gen. E. G. "Buck" Shuler, Jr. George Starks and all the others parachuted into Nazi-occupied France and spent the next several harrowing weeks dodging Germans, aided by French villagers. Finally, George met a member of the French Resistance, who helped him during the final weeks of his 300-mile trek into Switzerland. This journey was filled with terrifying moments, including passage through five German roadblocks while George was hidden on the rear floorboard of a car. Growing up in a family steeped in military history, Carole Engle Avriett often heard her uncle-chief mechanic for Gen. Claire Lee Chenault's Flying Tigers-insist, "Ain't no fake stories ever gonna outdo the real ones." Avriett pursued a career as an editor with Southern Living Magazine recording real-life stories, then as an author at the intersection of true-life narratives and military history. Coffin Corner Boys is her sixth book. Avriett graduated from the University of California, Davis, with a BA of double majors in English and History, specializing in Military History. She received a Masters of Education with a concentration in English Composition from Auburn University where she taught Advanced Composition. Lieutenant General E.G. "Buck" Shuler Jr. (born 1936) was commander of Strategic Air Command's Eighth Air Force in Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. Eighth Air Force comprises about half of SAC's long-range force of manned bombers, tankers and intercontinental ballistic missiles. As a young band of brothers flies over German-occupied France, they come under heavy fire. Their B-17 is shot down and the airmen, stumbling through fields and villages, scatter across Europe. Some struggled to flee for safety. Others were captured immediately and imprisoned. Now, for the first time, their incredible story of grit, survival, and reunion is told. In 1944, George Starks was just a nineteen-year-old kid from Florida when he and his high school buddies enlisted in the US military. They wanted to join the action of WWII. George was assigned to the 92nd Bomb Group, in which the median age was 22, and on his crew's first bombing mission together received the most vulnerable spot of a B-17 mission configuration: low squadron, low group, flying #6 in the bomber box formation. Airmen called George's position the Coffin Corner because here exposure was most likely to draw hostile fire. Sure enough, George's plane was shot down by a German Fw190, and he jumped at 25, 000 feet for the first and only time, as he tells the story. He landed near Vitry-le-Perthois to begin a 300-mile trek through the dangers of war-torn France towards the freedom of neutral Switzerland. Through waist-deep snow, searing exhaustion, and close encounters with Nazis, George repeated to himself the mantra just one more day. He battled to keep walking. His comrades were scattered all across Europe and experienced places as formidable as German POW camps and as hospitable as Spain, each crew member always wondering about the fate of the others. After the war, George made two vows: he would never lose touch with his men again and one day would attempt to thank those who had risked their lives to save his. Despite passage of time and demands of career and family, he accomplished both. He reunited with his crew then twenty-five years later returned to France to locate as many of the brave souls who had helped him evade the enemy as he could. Join George as he retraces his steps to freedom and discover the amazing stories of sacrifice and survival and how ten young American boys plus their French Helpers became heroes.
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Seller's Description:
Used book in very good and clean conditions. Minor cosmetic defects may be present. Pages and cover intact. May include library marks notes marks and highlighting. Fast Shipping.