Thunderbolt

By: Johnson, Robert S.

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 034501961X
• ISBN13: 9780345019615
• Release Date: June 1971
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Weight: 0.32 lbs.

Customer Reviews

SUPERB ACCOUNT BY AN ACE !!!!

MAJOR JOHNSON'S PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF HIS EXPERIENCES IN TRAINING AND COMBAT OVER THE ETO IS A MUST FOR ALL MILITARY AVIATION ENTHUSIASTS. HE PULLS NO PUNCHES IN DESCRIBING HIS OWN AND OTHER'S MISTAKES AS THE 56th FIGHTER GROUP,HIS UNIT, ORGANIZES IN THE STATES AND PREPARES FOR COMBAT. ALTHOUGH HE IS OBVIOUSLY A MODEST MAN, BOB JOHNSON PROVIDES GREAT INSIGHT INTO HIS OWN CHARACTER,THROUGH WHAT HE SAYS AND DOESN'T SAY, ABOUT HIS SUPERIORS AND FELLOW PILOTS.WRITTEN BY AN ACE AND A # 1 FELLOW, BUY THIS BOOK ALONE TO EXPERIENCE THE LIFE OF A WW2 FIGHTER PIOLT.

The men who flew the P-47

Bob Johnson describes more than the P-47, he describes the men who flew them and the things they did to get into battle. Johnson, a top scoring ace, in the league with Dick Bong and Eddie Rickenbacher failed the gunnery test at the end of fighter school with a score of 4.7 percent but was sent to battle with his unit. In his first battle he pulled off, thinking his plane had a problem because he had never fired all six of the guns on the plane at one time. He tells of how men died when the P-47 went into compressibility dives, a condition unknown before and how they met the ME-109 and FW-190 fighters, head to head and won. He tells how he came to love the fighter that could bring him back, with hundreds of bullet holes and some cannon shells imbedded in the seat armor, certain death for the pilot in most planes. But not in the heavy P-47.