Stephen Frater

This is a story about two men, Werner Goering and Jack Rencher, command pilot and co-pilot respectively of a B-17 bomber during WWII. What makes this book unique is that the co-pilot was charged by the US Government with the task of shooting the pilot should their plane ever come to a point where it was going down or if the command pilot ever acted weird. More than 70 years after it ended, there are still new books being written about the events of that war.One might wonder why a co-pilot would be under such orders but one needs only to look again at the name of the pilot. Not revealed until the very end of this book is the fact the Goering in the book was not indeed related to the Reich Marshall of Hitler's Germany.
As revealed in the book, these two men arrived in the cockpit of a B-17 with no prior knowledge of the other, yet one was to be an assassin if need be. Curiously, they became deep friends and complemented each other in the cockpit. Their pre-war backgrounds were hugely different, yet they were children of the depression. Goering was a masterful pilot, never losing a crew member over 49 missions, and Jack filled the roles that Goering didn't.
There are many gory details about injuries aloft and brutal statistics made flying in the 8th Air Force an unhealthy occupation. Less than half of the men who went up did not come down the same way they went up. New crews lasted averaged 4 missions. It is argued by some that without the Air Force bombing of the German artificial petroleum industry, the war might have gone on far longer than it did. That argument has been made over and over and it won't be resolved this side of eternity.… (mer)

A good, but not great story of the Eight Air Force in WW2 and one pilot in particular. Werner Goering is a German-American who's family is related to the Reichmarshal himself, Hermann Goring. Werner volunteers to be a bomber pilot and with his friend and co-pilot Jack Rencher, they lead a B-17 and crew through many combat flights over Germany. Werner goes on to be a distinguished pilot in the Air Force after the war and is decorated many times.
This isn't just the story of Werner and Jack, but the story of the horrible casualties and conditions these airmen had to endure while carrying out their missions. The story of Jack and Werner is fascinating and well told, but this book jumps around a bit and swings from a personal story to the greater story of the strategic bombing of Germany. A new angle on this piece of history.… (mer)

Interesting story but the story needed editing pretting badly. Facts were repeated several times as if they were the first time. Facts that did nothing to advance the story were presented (a list of the longest serving people in federal service). I'm glad this story was preserved and the author tracked down the facts. I just wish he had it edited by a historian that could have corrected some of the errors and organized the information better.

For the record, if you play Russian Roulette with a Colt 45 1911 with only one bullet you have greater than a chance of a hole in your head. It's not a revolver.… (mer)

U.S. Captain Werner Goering flew 49 B-17 missions over occupied Europe in WW II. His uncle was Hermann Goering, Hitler's second in command and leader of the Luftwaffe, the very force that was trying to shot Werner down. The American intelligence service was worried that Werner may be sympathetic to the Nazi cause and attempt to land a B-17 to aid the Germans. To make sure this never happened, they assigned Jack Rencher as his co-pilot and Rencher's assignment was to shoot Werner if he tried to land the plane or if there was a chance Werner would be captured.

Werner had the distinction of never losing a crew member even though he flew 49 missions and did crash once on takeoff. He went on to fly jets for the Strategic Air Command during the 1950's. He only learned about his friend Rencher's assignment in 2009 when told about it by the author of this book.

This isn't just a book about Werner's story. To illustrate what it was like to fly over Occupied Europe day after day, Frater includes many anecdotes about other B-17 crews. He also describes what it was like to fly in a B-17 at incredible heights with poor protection against the cold while fighting off German fighters and shrapnel from the German anti-aircraft guns. This is another excellent addition to the literature about this part of the war with the bonus that we learn about Werner's part in it.… (mer)