Crewdog: A Saga of a Young American

By John Matt

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1881429008
• ISBN13: 9781881429005
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: Waterford Books
• Length: 512 Pages
• Weight: 2.20 lbs.

Customer Reviews

AN UNCOMMONLY INTERESTING MEMOIR

A version of this review first appeared in the October 2000,DR AHEAD, the newsletter of the Air Force Navigators Observers Association.CREWDOG is an engaging, first-person account of what it was like to spend 20 years as an Air Force navigator. From training and combat during World War II to flying with the Washington, D.C.-based VIP group in the 1960s, it was high adventure. Matt writes with style, force, and humor. Further, he has backed up his personal memories and records with detailed research. CREWDOG is a lively history of an important era in the development of the U.S. Air Force by one who helped make that history. It rates among the three or four best of the two dozen or so such books I've read in the past few years.Matt grew up in Yonkers, then a pleasant town near New York City, the son of recent immigrants from central Europe. He graduated from high school in June, 1941, and turned 18 right after Pearl Harbor. He volunteered for the Army Air Corps, was sworn in during March, 1942, and was called to active duty a year later. He went to Selman Field, Monroe, LA, where he earned his navigaor wings and commission. Matt's account of this training conveys what it is like to be doing so much so young. And he also remembers what it was like to go home on leave and to spend weekend passes with classmates and local girls.Joining a B-24 combat crew, he was assigned to the 576th Bomb Squadron, 392nd Bomb Group of the Eight Air Force. Matt started flying combat missions with his crew in October, 1944, and they were on the last raids which the Eighth flew in April, 1945, without serous physical physical damange to themselves. The missions are recounted in vivid detail. But the stay in England was not just combat. There were lighter times, like waking up in a London hotel to find somebody had stolen his pants.Many books about combat in World War II end at this point, but CREWDOG goes right on because rather than leaving active duty as so many did, Matt stayed in, fought off combat malaise, and went from one challenging flying assignment to another. This included weather recon in the North Atlantic and hurricane penetration from Bermuda. On one trip to Saudi Arabia, he was a guest at dinner party given by King Ibn Saud on the roof of his place and he was present at the nuclear bomb tests at Eniwetok. His final assignment was with the Special Air Missions Squadron which provides transportant for the President of the U.S. and other VIPs. Matt makes all these experiences a reader's delight. CREWDOG belongs in every private and public library which has a serious interest in aviation. Bill Wilkins, Colonel, USAF Retired