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“Korkuc has a deft editing hand, preserving Chaplain Brown’s original voice and message while filling in large gaps in the historical record with his own research. This isn’t a daily diary. Instead, it is a record of the triumphs and hardships, the glory and horror, the mundane and monumental events of sustained aerial combat. Readers come away from this exceptionally readable work with something more than fact, figures, and statistics (although those are there too). They develop a shared perspective with the airmen of the 381st Bomb Group.”—Cory S. Hollon, Col, Ph.D., USAF,Assistant Professor, School of Advanced Air and Space Studies

“This mesmerizing book offers an inside look at the brave young men who overcame sheer fear to wage the US 8th Air Force’s bloody aerial offensive against Hitler’s Germany. James Good Brown, the 381st Bomb Group’s chaplain during World War II, recorded his observations as his friends flew off to die or returned to cope with their taste of hell. Brown testified to the nobility of the many Americans who paid the ultimate price to save their world from tyranny. Editor Bob Korkuc has crafted Brown’s essays into a memoir that both warms and rends the heart.”—Gregory J.W. Urwin, Temple University, author of Facing Fearful Odds: The Siege of Wake Island “Chaplain James Good Brown served as Head Chaplain for the 381st Bomb Group (H) from its formation in January 1943 at Pyote Texas, deployment to the 8th Army Air Force in the UK, 297 combat missions from June 1943 – April 1945, and base closure in the UK in June 1945. As Chaplain, he developed close and personal relationships with the group leadership, combat crews, and ground personnel. In 1984, Brown published his wartime accounts in The Mighty Men of the 381st: Heroes All. The book was the first comprehensive overview of 381st history and became a classic both among 381st readers and, more generally, those interested in the remarkable history of the airwar. The book had two printings but has been unavailable for over thirty years. Bob Korkuc undertook the massive task of transcribing Brown’s book and supplementing it with information about the fate of the airmen who Brown described. This reissue of Brown’s diary offers an extraordinary work to a new generation of readers and honors the 619 airmen lost with the 381st. Highly recommended.”—Kevin E. Wilson, PhD, Executive Director, Group Historian, 381st Bomb Group (H) Memorial Association          ""An outsider's experience from the inside, the diary of Chaplain James Good Brown traces a pastor's observations and development over the course of three years as chaplain of a B-17 bomber group from its training in Texas to its last combat mission from its base in England. After feeling out of his depth and unworthy, Brown grows into a man who supported, encouraged, stiffened, and consoled air and ground crews through wartime experiences worse than any of them ever expected. All of them faced constant threats of death with courage and steadfastness carrying out duties devoid of all celluloid glamor. Brown's diary sheds new light on the wartime experience of those who launched and flew bombing missions over Nazi-occupied Europe.""—Michael E. Weaver, Air Command and Staff College, author of The Air War in Vietnam “Korkuc has a deft editing hand, preserving Chaplain Brown’s original voice and message while filling in large gaps in the historical record with his own research. This isn’t a daily diary. Instead, it is a record of the triumphs and hardships, the glory and horror, the mundane and monumental events of sustained aerial combat. Readers come away from this exceptionally readable work with something more than fact, figures, and statistics (although those are there too). They develop a shared perspective with the airmen of the 381st Bomb Group.”—Cory S. Hollon, Col, Ph.D., USAF,Assistant Professor, School of Advanced Air and Space Studies

Author Information

Bob Korkuc is an electrical engineer and the author of Finding a Fallen Hero: The Death of a Ball Turret Gunner. During the research and writing of this book, Korkuc became a student of the 381st Bomb Group and was privileged to learn about their exploits during World War II. 

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