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Ted Fahrenwald - Wot a Way to Run a War!: The World War II Exploits and Escapades of a Pilot in the 352nd Fighter Group

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Book:
Wot a Way to Run a War!: The World War II Exploits and Escapades of a Pilot in the 352nd Fighter Group
Author:
Ted Fahrenwald
Publisher:
Casemate
Genre:
Books / Home and family
Year:
2014
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Exquisitely funny, these letters are also an historical treasure that givestremendous insight into the day-to-day life of a typical USAAF fighter group (Jay A. Stout, author of Vanished Hero).
Ted Fahrenwald flew P-47s and P-51s with the famed 352nd Fighter Group out of Bodney, England, during the critical tipping-point period of the air war over Europe. A classic devil-may-care fighter pilot, he was also a distinctively talented writer and correspondent. After a typical day of aerial combat and strafing missions over Nazi-occupied Europeand of course, the requisite partying and creative mischief on baseTed would sit in his Nissen hut at a borrowed manual typewriter and compose exquisitely humorous letters detailing his exploits in the air and on the ground to his family back home.
But these letters are not the mundane missives of a homesick young man who missed his mothers cooking. Rather, this journalistically educated and incurably comedic pilot detailed his aerial exploits in a hilarious and self-effacing style that combines the vernacular of the day with flights of joyful imagination rivaling St. Exupery. And he didnt sanitize his lettersmuch. Ted enthusiastically narrates the day-to-day rollercoaster ribaldry that was the natural M.O. of the young men who were tasked to kill Hitlers Luftwaffe. His descriptions of near-constant drinking, skirt-chasing, gambling, and out-and-out tomfoolery put the lie to the notion of the Greatest Generation as an earnest band of do-gooders.
Praise for Ted Fahrenwalds Bailout Over Normandy
A 1940s masterpiece with a heart and soul unlike anything thats been published. Jay Stout, author of Fortress Ploesti
Get to know one of the more rambunctious members of the Greatest Generation with this memoir. Book News, Inc.

Ted Fahrenwald: author's other books

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Published in the United States of America and Great Britain in 2012 by CASEMATE - photo 1

Published in the United States of America and Great Britain in 2012 by CASEMATE - photo 2

Published in the United States of America and Great Britain in 2012 by
CASEMATE PUBLISHERS
908 Darby Road, Havertown, PA 19083
and
10 Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford, OX1 2EW

Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-1920

Cataloging-in-publication data is available from the Library of Congress and
the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in
writing.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

For a complete list of Casemate titles please contact:

CASEMATE PUBLISHERS (US)
Telephone (610) 853-9131, Fax (610) 853-9146
E-mail:

CASEMATE PUBLISHERS (UK)
Telephone (01865) 241249, Fax (01865) 794449
E-mail:

Contents

Graduation 1942 Ted gets his wings at Thunderbird Field and his younger - photo 4

Graduation 1942: Ted gets his wings at Thunderbird Field, and his younger sister Caroline is there for the occasion. While the letters were written with the whole family in mind, many of them were addressed to Toots.

Editors Note

A fter a typical day of aerial combat and strafing missions over Nazi-occupied Europeand of course, the requisite partying and any creative mischief that could be found on baseAmerican fighter pilot Ted Fahrenwald would sit in his Nissen hut at a borrowed manual typewriter and compose exquisitely humorous letters detailing his exploits in the air and on the ground to his family back home in Chicago. Ted flew P-47s and P-51s with the famed 352nd Fighter Group out of Bodney, England, during the critical tipping-point period of the air war over Europe. A classic devil-may-care fighter pilot, he was also a distinctively talented writer and correspondent. These letters are not the mundane missives of a homesick young man who missed his mothers cooking. Rather, this journalistically educated and incurably comedic pilot described his aerial exploits in a hilarious and self-effacing manner that combined the vernacular of the day with flights of joyful imagination rivaling St. Exupery. And he didnt sanitize his lettersmuch. Ted enthusiastically narrates the day-to-day roller coaster ribaldry that was the natural M.O. of the young men who were tasked to kill Hitlers Luftwaffe. His descriptions of near-constant drinking, skirt-chasing, gambling, and out-and-out tomfoolery put the lie to any notion of the Greatest Generation as an earnest band of do-gooders.

But these collected letters are not literary entertainment alone. They are a boon to military and aviation historians and to those who study language, culture, and the science of societies at war. They also contain rich and affectionate (and naturally, comic) descriptions of many of his flight mates and commanders that are an invaluable addition to the history of this renowned squadron.

The letters end dramatically when the ammunition truck that Ted was strafing exploded and knocked his Mustang The Joker out of the sky on June 8, 1944, just two days after D-Day. The subsequent story of his adventures with the Maquis (backwoods French Resistance) and his capture by the Germans and escape is recounted in a full-length companion book, Bailout Over Normandy: A Flybojs Adventures with the French Resistance and Other Escapades in Occupied France. Written at age 24 and published from the recently discovered manuscript, Teds book is a natural accompaniment to this collection of letters.

The Maquis embraced this irreverent and whimsical American fighter pilot as one of their own, and you will too when you read both this chronicle in letters and his adventure book. The stories that leap off the page in my Dads writing provide a depth, richness, and sheer enjoyment that are rare in the literature of the Greatest Generation.

Madelaine Fahrenwald

Chapter 1

Training in the U.S.A.

LT. TPF
486 FIGHTER SQDN.
REPUBLIC FIELD
FARMINGDALE, LONG ISLAND

April 2, 43

E ver hear of the mischievous rascals from the land of the Leprechauns and Pixies? Well, hi-diddle-dee-dee, I have. These small characters are the gremlins who plague fighter pilots with their corny little stunts. Now just the other night, while flying at 6,000 feet over Long Island, I jumps up in my cockpit and by straining my eyes I can make out a very fantastic sight. For there perched upon the cowling and braced against the wind is one of these fabulous critters with a paintbrush in one hand and a bucket of oil in the other. This little jerk proceeds to paint my windshield black, and when finished with this thorough task he dumps what oil he has left all over the fuselage and creeps down through the air-scoop and into the engine of my now blacked-out Thunderbolt.

Down there he evidently calls in the reserves, for one small gremlin couldnt possibly make such a racket. Anyway, they gang up and poke holes in my oil lines, pump quantities of nauseous smoke into the cockpit, spit hot oil spray into my eyes, and then tear a cylinder head off my engine. Whereupon ol Ted in the cockpit howls imprecations, fills the air with curses, and radios down to Mitchell Tower to turn on the cockeyed floodlights and prepare for an emergency landing.

At this point, a good gremlin appears from a vacant hole in my instrument panel and perches upon my head. He lays there on his little stomach, curled around my helmet, and whispers into my earphones, telling me just when to turn and dump my gear and cut my speed, and just when to cut my switches. So with one eye hanging out in the breeze, I howl in, dust off some hi-tension lines, and set er down three points on the runway (tail-wheel, wingtip, one main-wheel) and call it quits. So I dead-stick in at Mitchell one dark night, and safelythanks to my little pal.

Gremlins certainly are versatile. Some whisper at pilots. Other beat great holes in airplanes. Still others roll up the runways when a pilot tries to land, thus forcing him to give er the gun and go around again. This last stunt is quite novel, I think, particularly when one is equipped with a hot airplane and a cold engine. Sometimes two gremlins will perch, one on either shoulder of a pilot, when hes trying to land under difficulties. One, at the crucial moment, will holler, Pull it up, fool! and the other at the same time will snarl, Set er on the ground, gutless! So you see what we have to contend with. The ones I like best are those gremlins who swing from the latch of the sliding canopy when flying weather is good and everything runs smoothly. They swing to and fro singing, Hi-diddle-dee, its the pilots life fer me!

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