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thanks Great service -- well satisfied with all the books we have ordered and received.
Much to my pleasure and surprise, I received a warm response. In that regard, this book is the last living link to some of the most brave and heroic men in American History. We have been emailing back and forth ever since, along with a couple of the airmen written about and mentioned in the book that Rob to which Rob put me in contact with.What is special about Untold Valor is the painstaking research Rob went through to make sure the stories were accurate as possible. After you do, I recommend sending Rob an email and let him know what you think. Their bravery and their losses in WWII were staggering, as was the often lifetime suffering for those wounded physically or psychologically. Reading this book has been a very special experience for me. My beloved grandfather, who was a ball-turret gunner on B-17s during WWII, passed away in 2007. They are a breed apart.
After finishing the book, I decided to email the author to thank him for writing a chapter about the ball-turret and let him know how much I enjoyed and appreciated his book. So, I recommend Rob's book "Untold Valor", the extended book about Leonard Herman, written by Leonard & Rob: "Combat Bombardier" and his blog untoldvalor.blogspot.com for learning about one of the most important, but infrequently discussed subjects of American History - the brave Airmen of WWII. Also in many cases, sadly, such as with Leonard Herman and Gus Mencow, Rob has had to endure the loss of the friends he has come to know so well - those who he loves and admires infinitely. Rob is, himself, an example of Untold Valor in a literary, historical, educational and friendship sense. Each of these men gave their stamp of approval to Rob, which he went above and beyond to earn. I found this book while searching for the phrase "ball-turret". In the case of Leonard Herman, Rob was even recently asked to Eulogize Leonard at his funeral service. Along with this loss, came the realization that I had not learned enough about his experience in the ball-turret, or enough about the history about the seemingly super-humanly brave men who manned the various aircraft of WWII.
In many cases, Rob developed close personal friendships with the airmen he writes about and was often a guest at their house for days at a time during his research. Like the ball-turret chapter, what you will find here are well-written, extremely important, soul-wrenching stories that might have been lost to history had the author not intervened to tell them. These are extraordinarily special men with special stories. In my search, I discovered this was the only book with a chapter dedicated to the subject.
Some facts about survival rates are repeated more than a dozen times in the course of the book.Well worth reading, despite all this. (How long would it take to verify the spelling of Strayer College). The stories seem to be in random sequence and to have been developed independently of one another, which adds to the redundancy. These are great stories, some of which have never been told before, and indeed some of the stories only developed fully in the last few years. Not enough has been said about Switzerland and the war, the strategic bombing decisions, the Allied treatment of displaced persons after the war, Jewish airmen, and other topics. It is a difficult book to read, however, because the writing is amateurish, clumsy, and redundant. The author deserves high praise for digging them out and bringing them to print. It was poorly edited, and at times appears that it was not edited at all.
I won't be adding it to my shelf of WWII aviation. More history, less hoo-rah. Three chapters in, I'm still wondering when we're going to get to the bomber crews. It's a mishmash of stories, subjectively told.
A fact that Morris effectively relates through the accounts of those confined and no longer able to take to the skies.I highly recommend this book for not only those who study history, but for those who seek further insight into the human spirit. Yet their tales and survival are not confined to the stratosphere. Thanks to Rob Morris, these stories of valor are no longer untold.Owen Zupp- Author "Down to Earth"[.]. History can be found both in volumes upon shelves and in the hearts of those who witnessed it. Rob Morris has managed to organize a meeting between the two through his tremendous book, "Untold Valor".With a style underpinned by sincerity, Rob has managed to grasp and share some amazing tales from those who dared take to the hostile skies over Europe.
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