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Hell Hawks! by Robert F. Dorr and Thomas D. Jones
Hell Hawks!
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In May of 1941, a blunt-nosed fuselage “…married to a pair of graceful, semi-elliptical wings mounted with eight heavy .50 caliber machine guns” took its first flight. The P-47 Thunderbolt had a 2,430-horsepower, eighteen-cylinder air-cooled Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp radial engine, complete with a turbo-supercharger for high-altitude performance. In later models, the P-47 would weigh in at 19,400 pounds, which would make it heftier than any other single-engine fighter in WW II. With its long-range ability and speed of 433 miles per hour at thirty thousand feet, the Thunderbolt made a perfect escort for the WW II bomber offensive from England. As authors Robert F. Dorr and Thomas D Jones stated in their book about the P-47 and the men who flew them, Hell Hawks, “…the mighty P-47 Thunderbolt (was) an aircraft that evoked fierce loyalty from its pilots.” One of its crew, Flight Chief Alvin E, Bradley, maintained the aircraft and was proud of what it could do: “It was the safest, toughest plane to bring somebody back after it was damaged.”
Such a magnificent, well-equipped and respected plane had to have a magnificent, well-trained and respected pilot in return…and it did. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Hell Hawks…fierce pilots of the fierce P-47 Thunderbolt.
Fighter pilots have long been mysterious and fascinating creatures of the sky for every young boy who dreams of beating the bad guys. The pilots of the P-47 Thunderbolt would have sent rapturous chills down the spines of every neighborhood boy in what they did, saw and survived. In Hell Hawks!, Dorr and Jones meticulously recount the recruitment, training, accomplishments and tragedies of this unique and spectacular group of fighter pilots. With the personal narratives of the surviving Hell Hawks, every combat exchange and each individual casualty is permanently memorialized in vivid and often emotional detail.
The same intensity that defined these hawks started with their training, usually at an Air Force classification center. There, under the scrutiny of Army doctors and psychologists, the future pilots underwent eyesight, mental aptitude, motor coordination and psychological stability tests. If the wannabe pilot passed this first phase, he was moved on to a training school. Only 50% succeeded past the first round. The half who passed the tests trained on other planes, got their silver wings and second-lieutenant bars and only then got to step into the cockpit of the P-47 Thunderbolt.
In this remarkable tribute to the plane and her pilot, the authors take the reader from the initial need for these elite pilots, to sitting in the cockpit during the entire WW II air war. The chronological order appears to cover all the major air battles that involved the Hell Hawks: Normandy beaches; hedgerow battles where ground troops could not see beyond vegetation; Falaise; Hürtgen; the Bulge; the final battles which include the attack on the Hell Hawks’ airfield near the Alsatian city of Metz; and, ultimately, where the individual Hell Hawks landed after WW II.
There is no sugarcoating of leadership behaviors, or misrepresentation of the pilots’ emotional preparedness, fears, or courage. It is all there, black on white, with a description of their rations, living conditions, the fickle weather, the frenzied search for souvenirs, the recounting of horrors from the few who visited the concentration camps, and most importantly, the undying determination of the enemy (the Wehrmacht) to kill them. It is there in all its graphic, colorful, brutal truth, and even sometimes, a lighter, humorous touch amidst all the chaos and tragedy these young pilots faced.
Hell Hawks! is an extremely vivid and full account of this elite group of pilots. Anyone remotely connected to the histories of these flying men, or any veterans backed up by the support of these fighter planes, can do themselves a favor by adding this book to their personal library. That is, if the little fighter pilot in them hasn’t already put it there.
To order Hell Hawks by Robert F. Dorr and Thomas D. Jones, go to Zenith Press or Amazon. Zenith Press’s primary area of interest is American military history, current events, and aviation and aerospace. Go to the Zenith Press Blog for a wide variety of military memories.
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Posted by Karen St. John on Jul 15 2010, With 0 Reads, Filed under Book Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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