15 - Bombs Away (1942)

Summary

Joseph Henry Jackson.

“The Bookman's Notebook.”

San Francisco Chronicle,

26 November 1942, p. 11Y.

Since the move into Africa, Americans have become more than ever conscious of the great bombing planes that have been coming off the production lines for months past. The terms “Fortress” and “Liberator” are common words today; we regard those magnificent engines of destruction almost with affection.

The fact is, however, that we know more about the planes themselves than about the men who operate them. There have been magazine articles—a few—and there have been some newspaper stories. But until now the whole extraordinary story hasn't been told.

John Steinbeck's new book tells that story. Bombs Away… is its title. It's no romance, no fictionized yarn, but a book of actualities, written specifically at the request of the U. S. Air Forces. To write it, Steinbeck toured for months, visiting training fields all over the country. With him went John Swope, himself a flyer, to take the 60 fine photographs that illustrate the book. Text and photographs together, this is as completely American a book as the war has produced. It's the story of something very specially and peculiarly U. S. A. In a way it epitomized America at war—as you'll see the moment you open it.

There are six jobs that make up a bomber crew, six tasks that must be performed with all the precision, all the elan of, for example, a crack basketball team executing a carefully thought-out play.

The men that do these jobs are the pilot, the navigator, the bombardier, the crew chief, the gunner, the radio man.