Countdown! 35 Daylight Missions Against Nazi Germany

Recreates the experiences of the American airmen of the Ninety-Second Bomb Group in wartime Germany

The author, when a "very unsophisticated 20-year-old" from Texas, flew 35 missions in the European theater as a B-17 bombadier, the worst of them targeting Merseburg in Germany, an oil-refinery complex with heavy anti-aircraft defenses. Koger learned that a B-17 "can be hit, and hit, and hit, and still fly." Half of the book deals with his activities between missions, as he tried to fight off his sense of doom, brought on by the combat loss of several crew mates. Koger fell in love with London, found the English warm and friendly, and spent much of his free time chasing women. He ingenuously reports that he "tried mightily" to make out, but "I always seemed to pick the 'nice girl' type." His descriptions of his boyish exhilaration after the battered B-17 touched down at Podington airbase in England at the end of the 35th mission is a satisfying ending to a charmingly modest memoir. In a moving coda, Koger recounts his recent visit to the long-abandoned Podington base. Photos.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Based on notes he made at the time, Koger's narrative takes the reader with him on the 35 daylight bomber missions he flew over France and Germany during World War II. This well-written account is so vivid and fresh that we see the war through the eyes of the 20-year-old who lived it rather than the much older veteran who wrote it. Koger describes the terror of flying combat missions with just the clear plastic nose of the B-17 between him and the flak; of seeing friends' planes stricken; of his group's first encounter with the German Me-163 Komet rocket-powered fighter. On the humorous side, he tells of a crew forced down but picked up and returned by the legendary General Patton. This is not just another war story, but a stirring evocation of a rite of passage undergone by many of Koger's generation--equal to if not more impressive than John Muirhead's Those Who Fall ( LJ 1/15/87). Highly recommended for most collections.
- George F. Scheck, Naval Underwater System Ctr. Lib., Newport,
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.