Search results for ""author frank speer""

The 4th Fighter Group, armed with P-51s and aggressive, seasoned pilots, battled the Luftwaffe in the air and on the ground, achieving an impressive score of 1,016 German planes destroyed, the highest score of all Allied Groups. Instrumental in achieving this record were eighty-one pilots who became aces and men whose stories are the subject of this book. Their accounts go beyond the battles and individual victories to give a glimpse of their original motivations and their subsequent successes, failures, and often violent deaths. The accounts are written by the author, a fellow ace, who lived with them, fought with them, and survived to tell their fascinating stories.

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The P-51 Mustangs of the 4th Fighter Group were the first to escort bombers over Berlin during World War II, the first to escort bombers from England to Russia, and at war's end ranked first in the number of enemy aircraft destroyed (over 1,000). The Debden Warbirds describes in detail the everyday workings of this record setting fighter group, from their Eagle Squadron beginnings in Hurricanes and Spitfires, to their unprecedented triumphs in Thunderbolts and Mustangs. This authentic account, gleaned from the Squadron and Tower Diaries, is enhanced by dozens of combat reports and personal accounts from pilots and crews whose day-to-day encounters are faithfully recorded. Author Frank Speer became an ace within seventeen missions over Germany flying P-51 Mustangs with the 4th FG, having been credited with destroying six enemy aircraft. On a flight over Poland his aircraft was shot down. He walked nearly 400 miles from the site of his crash landing before he collapsed from exhaustion and was captured by the Germans. He was incarcerated in three different Stalags prior to his escape and repatriation. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters. He lives in Pennsylvania.

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