The Spirit of Attack: Fighter Pilot Stories - Paperback

by Bruce Gordon (Author)

This book is written for readers without military experience -- a hundred photos and diagrams support the text. Many photos were taken by the author from his cockpit, while stock photos show aircraft types so the reader can see the aircraft in the story. The first half is the author's personal experiences; the second half is stories that he heard from his fellow pilots. Our Ace of Aces, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, related a story to gathered fighter pilots of a victory in WW I. The author tells of dogfighting the F-106 against the F-104, challenging 20 MiGs off the coast of North Korea, and being involved in President Nixon's "Madman Nuclear Alert" of 1969. In Vietnam, he flew the F-100 at night attacking under flares and supported Cambodian ground troops in a bitter battle against the North Vietnamese. He tells his friend's story of shooting down a MiG in North Korea, then being shot down himself. His friend tells of watching a nuclear bomb test, and he closes with a story of his squadron flying P-38s in WW II, attacking the Ploesti oil field sand being mauled by defending Romanian fighters.