The Wrong Stuff.
A story about the B17 Super Fortress 
Air War Over Germany in WW2

0009442
B-17-F Flying Fortress WW2 Bomber Airplane" src="images/B-17_Flying_Fortress_Bomber_Airplane_WW2.jpg" border="1" hspace="10" vspace="4" width="300" height="776" align="right">The B-17 was 74' 4" long, 19' 1" high and had a wingspan of 103' 10"  The B-17's empty weight was 36,135 lbs and it had a Gross Weight of 65,500 lbs.  The B-17 used four Wright R-1820-97 Cyclone engines each producing 1200 hp giving it a total of 4,800 hp.  The B-17 has a Cruise Speed of 182 mph, a Maximum Speed of 287 mph, a service ceiling of 35,600 ft. and a maximum range of 3400 miles. The flying fortress is one of the WW2 airplanes that was considered one of the heavy bombers.  One of the most famous of all of the heavy bombers of WW2 is the "Memphis Belle," the fist 8th Air Force bomber to complete 25 missions. Another one of the Heavy Bombers is the one of Colin Kelly's B-17C or as a B-17D of the 436th Bombardment Group stationed at March Field in 1941.

ISBN-10: 0941072231

"The Wrong Stuff" by Truman Smith is a memoir by a former copilot on a B-17 in the US 8th Air Force. Mr. Smith blazes his own trails in this book. He doesn't pull any punches about some of the screw-ups made during the war that cost lives, or about his own thoughts about the fact that every man involved in the war is killing other human beings. The only way to beat a bad enemy is to be worse. Smith's tale is at times hilarious, at times tragic, but always entertaining. He tells it in a breezy, easy-to-read style with plenty of wry comments thrown in. Not only are the air battle scenes well-written, but accounts of his experiences at the air base in England, of his trips to London where his youth and inexperience hamper his attempts at finding girls, and of his visit to the 'Flak Farm' where he is sent to recuperate from the stress of wondering whether or not he'll survive the next mission. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. As a historian and author who is researching two books on the 8th AF in WWII, I found this book really went a long ways toward explaining not only the horrors of war in the air but how the war affected the young men who fought that air war. I recommend it highly.

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