Bluenoser Tales: 352nd Fighter Group War Stories
edited by Robert H. “Punchy” Powell, United Writers Press Inc., Tucker, Ga., 2007, $55
As a supplement to—and sometimes even in lieu of—official historical narratives, veterans’ organizations such as the 352nd Fighter Association have chronicled their record for posterity in periodicals intended for vets, their families and their supporters. In the case of the Eighth Air Force’s famed 352nd Fighter Group, also known as the “Blue-Nosed Bastards of Bodney,” these accounts were bolstered by a series of magazine articles, mainly by the association’s historian, Mark L. Hamel.
Now Hamel, in collaboration with photo archivist Samuel L. Sox Jr. and former 352nd North American P-51 Mustang pilot Robert H. “Punchy” Powell, has gathered all this fascinating ephemera within hard covers as Bluenoser Tales. Not intended as a formal unit history, the book is more of a supplement to previously written histories—a collection of some 80 anecdotes that paint the unit’s heroic deeds in greater and more believable detail, along with aspects of everyday squadron life and insights into the personalities of pilots and ground crewmen alike.
The squadron’s distinctions included having as a member the highest-scoring Mustang ace of WWII. Needless to say, the saga of that ace, George Preddy, is well covered. The book also includes several perspectives on the surprise raid amid Operation Bodenplatte on January 1, 1945, when the 487th Fighter Squadron scrambled up from Asch airfield and shot down 24 German fighters without loss.
Aviation enthusiasts with a penchant for WWII in Europe and the Eighth Air Force will find Bluenoser Tales a worthwhile memento of a fighter group’s soul, preserved for posterity. Moreover, the purchase price goes to the 352nd Fighter Association, to help it continue chronicling the memories of an all-too-rapidly vanishing breed of airmen.
Originally published in the January 2009 issue of Aviation History. To subscribe, click here.
