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Grimm, Jacob L. Heroes of the 483rd: Crew Histories of a Much-Decorated B-17 Bomber Group during World War II. Warner Robins, GA: 483rd Bombardment Group Association, 1997.
No ISBN Foreword; Preface; Acknowledgments; About the Author; Introduction; photos; Index. The 483rd departed Hunter Field, GA in brand new B-17Gs and flew via Trinidad, Brazil, Dakar, and Merrakech to Steparone, Italy where they joined the group's ground echelon on 22 April 1944. On the following day 32 of the group's aircraft were aloft for a mission against Wiener Neustadt, Austria. In the ensuing 13 months of combat, from its base in Italy the 483rd bombed targets in Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia. Missions included Ploesti (nine times), Berlin, and shuttle bombing flights to the Soviet Union. Eighty-one of the group's B-17s were shot down, ditched while on combat missions, or written off due to battle damage. A total of 760 airmen from the 483rd were shot down, of whom 214 were killed in action. But this is not a unit history. Rather, this volume is a set of biographies of the crews who flew the B-17s of the 483rd Group in combat during 1944 and 1945. Organized alphabetically by the name of the pilot, each entry presents the details of a particular crew's journey through war. For each crew, all the members are listed with their position, hometown, and wartime record: MIA, evader, POW, KIA, ditch, crash, Berlin mission, shuttle mission, etc. Personnel are additionally listed in other entries elsewhere in the book when they were temporarily assigned to fly with a different crew. Photos are supplied for most crews and anywhere from a half page to five pages of narrative gives a snapshot of each crew's missions, adventures, accomplishments, and deactivation.
840th Squadron
The crew trained at Rapid City, SD, and shipped to MacDill Field, Tampa, FL 30 November 1943....
Because so many airmen flew some missions with crews other than their own, the crew-by-crew structure of the book occasionally becomes a little unwieldy and confusing, but names of all personnel are listed in the index and referenced to every page where they are mentioned for each crew with which they flew. Although their jobs were not as glamorous as the fly-boys, the ground crews were no less important -- "finest in the 15th Air Force" -- and the book's concluding section covers those men and their stories in about 14 pages.
Available directly from The 483rd Bombardment Group (H) Association.
Thanks to the 483rd for providing this review copy.
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