Return to Base: Memoirs of a B-17 Copilot Kimbolton, England, 1943-1944

by Jesse Richard Pitts

The B-17 Flying Fortress remains an endearing classic to the aviation world, but none knew this grand "lady" better than those who piloted her during World War II. Return to Base, a masterfully written autobiography, relates the bombing history and personal experience of Jesse Pitts, B-17 copilot and member of the 379th Bomb Group, Eighth Air Force, operating out of Kimbolton, England. Second Lieutenant Pitts and the crew of the Penny Ante flew twenty-five missions over France and Germany from 1943 to 1944. This memoir is a powerful and penetrating look back at this "band of brothers."

280 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2004

Reviews

[Don Phillipson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent war memoir, twice unusual in that the author was a copilot (never the commander of a crew or a formation) and "bicultural" after high school in France and Harvard college in the USA, thus a man of wider worldly experience than most 22-year-olds in the US Army. He survived 25 missions, including a couple of high-casualty American air raids. In retrospect, after he became a sociology professor, he wrote convincing narratives about the stress of combat, how relief was got from either drink or sex or art, and the dynamics of leadership, mentioning by name several of the superior commanders whose decisions he experienced. Pitts was posted to England after the initial disasters (and catastrophic losses) of the Eighth Air Force, but finished his tour before D-Day, thus before long-range escort fighters altered the character of American air warfare.