Serenade to the Big Bird [ First crew -- To begin with -- First mission -- Co-pilot's house, A doll named August -- Air medal: Munich, Brunswick, Metz, Avord, Abortion -- Grounded: London, Commando, A doll named August -- Mac: Ceremony, Oak leaf cluster, Kiel and Paree, Big B -- Blood on my hands: Incidentally, Ball team, Formation -- Voting -- Ten guys -- Dream girl -- D-Day: D-Day plus one, D-Day plus two, A doll named August -- Any mission . any day . for a while, A doll named August -- New order: Sammy Newton's crew -- Finis: Lonely one -- New crew: Education -- The shadow: Leipzig -- So to finish up]

Memorial Edition ; 160 pages : photographs ; 22 cm ISBN 9780965523868, 0965523861 OCLC 42646254 ; originally published 1947 ; color phiotographic boards, no dustjacket ; Contents: First crew -- To begin with -- First mission -- Co-pilot's house, A doll named August -- Air medal: Munich, Brunswick, Metz, Avord, Abortion -- Grounded: London, Commando, A doll named August -- Mac: Ceremony, Oak leaf cluster, Kiel and Paree, Big B -- Blood on my hands: Incidentally, Ball team, Formation -- Voting -- Ten guys -- Dream girl -- D-Day: D-Day plus one, D-Day plus two, A doll named August -- Any mission . any day . for a while, A doll named August -- New order: Sammy Newton's crew -- Finis: Lonely one -- New crew: Education -- The shadow: Leipzig -- So to finish up ; On verso of title page: "Published by Howland Associates, wartime comrades, college classmates and friends of Bert Stiles." ; printed color photograph of Bert Stiles grave marked in Belgium, laid in ; Bert Stiles was born in Denver, Colorado, August 30, 1920, He attended South High School in Denver, where he was, as he described it, a "victim" of progressive education. During the summers he worked as a junior forest ranger in Estes Park. In the fall of 1938 he enrolled at Colorado College, where he pursued his interest in writing with vigor. In June 1941, he locked himself up in a fraternity house and wrote twenty-seven stories. He sent some of his short stories to agents Ruth and Max Aley in New York, who asked him to send more. Hocking everything he could, he began hitchhiking to New York. The Saturday Evening Post accepted a whole series based on his experiences as a junior ranger in Estes Park. In January 1943 he was accepted into the U.S. Air Force, receiving his commission as a second lieutenant in November. He left for a combat assignment in England in March, 1944. In England he flew daily on raids and wrote vigorous, fiery articles for the London Daily Mail. He found time to write instructive pieces for Air Force and his first and only book. That work, Serenade to the Big Bird, is a journal published by his mother after his death. On November 26, 1944, Stiles was shot down in a P-51 while flying a fighter escort mission to Hanover, Germany, dying at the age of 23. The young veteran of 35 bomber missions received the Air Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross and a Purple Heart. His letters during his Air Force days, which occasionally bear the mark of military censors, offer an intriguing glimpse into the daily life and thoughts of a young pilot during World War II ; FINE. …