Smith, Truman. The wrong stuff; the adventures and misadventure of an 8th Air Force aviator.

Univ. of Oklahoma Press, Red River. 358p. illus. index. c1996. 0-8061-3422-4. $17.95. SA

The thing we forget about WW II is what it demanded of its warriors--there was the threat of death, to be sure, but also the unending endurance needed just to get through one combat after another with no guarantee of survival. Most fighters trudged through a dreary limbo, never daring to think about home or what life might be like after an endless war. They were young too, almost scandalously so by later standards. The teenage draftees and eager-beaver volunteers turned out to be good fighters, but their psychological problems were often huge.

Second Lieutenant Truman J. Smith was all of 20 years old when he found himself in England with the Eighth Air Force, the co-pilot of a B-17 about to go to war over Hitler's Europe. The combat tour at the time was 25 missions--the number the average aircrew might expect to make before being shot down. It was only youthful resilience that got him through the flak and fighters, the extensions to his tour of duty, and the often-peculiar ways in which young Americans sought relaxation in London.

Smith wrote his memoir long after retiring as a lieutenant colonel, and it benefits from years of reflection and hindsight. At times, though, he sounds a little awkward and detached, as if he is looking over a young stranger's shoulder and writing about what he ought to have felt, facing death every week. A couple of dream sequences were written to trick the reader; these could easily be eliminated along with some bits of self-conscious moralizing. By and large, though, this is a fine account of the ramshackle heroics of a typical young bomber crew, getting through an overwhelming experience as best they could. Recommended to school and public collections. Raymond L. Puffer, Ph,D., Historian Edwards Air Force Base, CA