My crazy drug addled cousin managed to write and publish a book about a Capt Fletcher Adams who was a bit of a local hero in my hometown.
http://www.cebudanderson.com/bleedingsky.htm Adams was a WW2 pilot who was on track to be one of the most lethal pilots of his time during the war before being shot down. (9 confirmed kills in 7 missions) He was assigned to the 357th Fighter group. I tried to read it and while the material is quite interesting my cousin's writing style is very disjointed, but it did resolve in a rather interesting development. The 357th's museum was being decommissioned and they decided to move it to my hometown. The surviving members of the 357th came down for the dedication of the museum
http://www.cebudanderson.com/357museum_ ... remony.htm and I got to meet and talk with these gentlemen. There were some very interesting stories in those old men.
The 357th was a fighter group assigned to protecting bombers and were the first pilots to be assigned to P-51 Mustangs and were the baddest asses in the air at the time. I believe that Chuck Yeager was assigned to this group or at least flew with them at times because the men spoke of him quite a bit.
One of the pilots told me (us) a tale of flying his bomber home after having had his tail completely shot off, and how he managed to bring it in with the remaining crew without the ability to steer. If I remember right he landed in a field once he crossed allied lines. Another told of a dogfight where both he and the German pilot ran out of ammunition and saluted each other mid flight and went back their separate ways. They later met at a WW2 convention in Europe and recognized each other from the story and realized that the only reason both were still alive was because neither still had any ammunition. Needless to say the stories were a lot more in depth but I don't remember them. But those were some great old men.
While researching this post I found some of the stories online of these old gentlemen. If you are interested in hearing the full stories, here is the link:
http://www.cebudanderson.com/combatstories.htm
