WW II- We Were There

About the Book

WW II books of 50 or more stories of boys on B-17 Flying Fortress crews, flying deadly missions with the Eighth Air Force in World War II. His writing is based on his teenage combat experiences as a B-17 radio/gunner on twenty combat missions with the 490th Bomb group, diaries and interviews of veterans of various bomb groups. Teenagers who volunteered to fly were trained and went into combat before they could legally vote or buy a drink. They signed up for the Army’s Air Cadet Program and became a part of the greatest air armada in the world. Any of the gunners on a bomber crew were teenagers and twenty-four was the average age of pilots, bombardiers and navigators. Veterans’ diaries give amazing reports of fighter attacks, flak damage and being shot down to become Prisoners of War. They were the youngsters who flew daylight bombing missions in the Mighty Eighth and destroyed Germany’s military and war industry.

About the Author

The author holds three Indiana University degrees and is retired from 37 years as an elementary teacher, Principal and Assistant to the Superintendent. Fifty year Mason, Rotary Paul Harris Award, Presbyterian Elder. Hutch uses the short story format and self-drawn sketches to encourage readers from twelve to ninety-six. His goal is to honor those who served to save our Country’s freedom and to educate the present generations. T/Sgt. James Lee Hutchinson is a WW II Eighth Air Corps veteran of twenty missions as a teenage B-17 Radio Operator/ gunner. The ninety- seven year-old educator has published six WW II short story books to record and preserve 300 stories of WW II history of B-17 and B-24 air crews, fighter pilots and POWs. Stories gathered in the past twenty years from TV interviews, memoirs and diaries of veterans. The majority of WW II vets are gone, but their WW II memories are saved. He also wrote “On Leatherwood Creek” which describes his boyhood prior to WW II and “Hutch’s Rainbow Bridge, Ninety-three Years of Pets” continues with family stories of all the pets in his life and escapades after retirement to his dream home on a farm.