I gratefully acknowledge my debt to the many people I’ve interviewed and the many texts I’ve consulted. I thank Joe Kusy, Lieutenant Colonel Juliann L. Kelly, U.S.A.F., Ken Kelly, Donald Lopez, Robert McIntosh, Colonel Richard Williamson and the staff of the 512th Antique Aircraft Restoration Group, Dover Air Force Base, Peter Chandler, Catherine Shine, Lenny Simon, Don McWilliams, Joe McCullough, Major Jim McGuire, Louis Kelley, and William Walton. Special thanks are due Albert Shepard and Betty Kelley, both of whom contributed far above and beyond the call of duty.
Besides original newspaper sources, I’ve made extensive use of information from The Army Air Forces in World War II, edited by W. F. Craven and J. L. Cate; The Mighty Eighth, by Roger Freeman; One Last Look, by Philip Kaplan and Rex Alan Smith; The Pilot’s Manual for the B-17 Flying Fortress; B-17 Parts Catalog for Type A-1B Turret; Ploesti, by James Dugan and Carroll Stewart; The Schweinfurt-Regensburg Mission, by Martin Middlebrook; The Fall of the Fortresses, by Elmer Bendiner; Piece of Cake, by Derek Robinson; Decision over Schweinfurt, by Thomas Coffey; The Good War, by Studs Terkel; Air Force Diary, edited by James Straubel; Impact: The Army Air Forces Confidential Picture History of World War II; and Air Force Combat Units of World War II, by the U.S.A.F. Historical Division.
About the Author
Jim Shepard (b. 1956) is the author of four short story collections and seven novels, most recently The Book of Aron, which has been shortlisted for both the Kirkus Prize and the American Library Association Andrew Carnegie Medal. Originally from Connecticut, Shepard now lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He is the J. Leland Miller Professor of English at Williams College, where he teaches creative writing and film. He won the Story Prize for his collection Like You’d Understand, Anyway, which was also a finalist for the National Book Award. Shepard’s stories have appeared in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, the Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s Magazine, and McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, among other publications; five have been selected for the Best American Short Stories, two for the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, and one for a Pushcart Prize.