Charles N. Stevens

An Innocent at Polebrook: a Memoir of an 8th Air Force Bombardier Charles N. Stevens Rev edition

This is a true story about aninnocent 18-year old plucked from his small hometown in California who foundhimself at 19 riding in the nose of a heavy bomber under conditions he couldnot possibly have imagined. The book explores the excruciating tension betweenhis innocence and the raw reality of war. As a bombardier riding in a Plexiglas compartment, the author had a unique vantage point from which he could behold grand vistas. He witnessed the beauty of clouds and the highaltitude sky, the ever-changing scene below of sea, mountains, rivers and towns. But he also observed armadas of bombers stretching out ahead like flocksof geese, the horrifying barrages of black antiaircraft fire, the menace ofenemy interceptors and the heartbreaking spectacle of wounded bombers. This book follows the everyday activities of a bombardier in the 8th Air Force during World War II. There are no heroics in this account other than thecourage of men who performed their jobs despite withering enemy opposition andthe ever-present specter of sudden death. It is a collage of agonizingapprehensions, numbing fright, occasional pride, bitter disappointments, abjectloneliness, fits of anger and even good times. The author wrote the book in 1st person, present tense so that, in a sense, the reader could ride with him inthe glassed-in nose of a B-17. He bolstered his recollections of each missionwith raw facts gleaned from tattered and yellowing mission reports that are filed in neat folders in the National Archives in Washington, D. C. and from numerous letters sent to andkept by his parents.