Pathfinder Pioneer: The Memoir of a Lead Bomber Pilot in World War II

"...this is an excellent personal account of the war as seen from the cockpit of a B-17.” ― The NYMAS Review

In this engaging book we see how an 18-year-old miner shoveling ore from deep in the ground in Utah suddenly found himself, only two years later, 30,000 feet in the air over Nazi Germany, piloting a Flying Fortress in the first wave of America’s air counteroffensive in Europe.

Like thousands of other young Americans, Ray Brim was plucked by the U.S. Army to be a combat flyer, and was quickly pitted against the hardened veterans of the Luftwaffe. Brim turned out to have a natural knack for flying, however, and was assigned to the select squadron developing lead Pathfinder techniques, while experimenting with radar. He was among the first to test the teeth of the Luftwaffe’s defenses, and once those techniques had been honed, thousands of other bomber crews would follow into the maelstrom, from which 80,000 never returned.

This work gives us vivid insights into the genesis of the American air campaign, told with the humor, attention to detail and humility that captures the heart and soul of our “Greatest Generation.” Brim was one of the first Pathfinder pilots to fly both day and night missions leading bomb groups of 600-plus bombers to their targets. At the onset of his missions in the spring of 1943, B-17 crews were given a 50-50 chance of returning. Each of his raids were nerve-wracking forays into the unknown; with struggles to survive the damage to his plane due to flak and German fighter attacks, in order to bring his 10-man crew home, often wounded but still alive.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments

Part I Dividend, Utah, 1922–1941
1. A Town Called Dividend
2. A Dividend Childhood
3. Down in the Mines
4. The Blind Date That Changed My Life

Part II The War Years, 1941–1944
5. Enlisting in the Army Air Corps
6. Learning to Fly
7. The BT-13 and the AT-6
8. Bomber Pilot
9. Going A.W.O.L.
10. Final Days in the States
11. Overseas
12. England at Last
13. Escape and Evasion Training
14. Mounting a Mission
15. Preparation
16. Mission One—Lorient Submarine Base
17. Missions Two and Three—The Piccadilly Princess
18. Missions Four and Five—Tested to the Limits
19. Missions Six and Seven—The Dutch Coast
20. Pathfinding in the Eighth Air Force
21. Time Off
22. Mission Eight—First as a Pathfinder
23. Missions Nine and Ten—Experimental Flying
24. Missions Eleven and Twelve—John Ford Gets Wounded
25. Mission Thirteen—The Bloody Hundredth
26. Missions Fourteen and Fifteen—The Milk Run
27. Missions Sixteen through Twenty—Counting Down
28. Mission Twenty-One—The Big “B”
29. Missions Twenty-Two through Twenty-Five—the Home Stretch 189
30. Special Orders

Part III After the War, 1945–1975
31. The Black Days
32. Project Sandstone
33. All Over the Map
34. The Aleutian Islands
35. An Air Force Career
36. Command and Staff College, and Afterwards

Epilogue
Appendices