Bomber Pilot, by Philip Ardery

Ardery was a young, Harvard educated lawyer who had just begun his own practice in his home state of Kentucky, when he left home without saying good-bye to his mother to join the Air Corp. Like me, he always wanted to fly, but couldn't afford it. In the months leading up to WWII he saw an opportunity to get flight training for free and took advantage of it, but he was lucky, very lucky to have lived through the war. He was on the deadly Ploesti raid from Northern Africa and flew several dangerous missions from Europe as well. After completing his combat tour, he became a wing operations officer for General Ted Timberlake and I am guessing because of his Harvard connections met many notable personalities of the times while on leave in London including Ed Murrow and Robert Capa. Ardery truly saw it all in the European air war and this is an important book that is often used as a source for other books, especially books about the Ploesti raid.