Wingtips in the Waist Windows: B-17s out of North Africa

"Wingtips" is the narrative of a twenty-three-year-old B-17F pilot during World War II in the United States Army Air Forces. The pilot, Dean Shields, was a member of the 99th Bombardment Group who flew fifty missions and returned with each of the other nine crew members intact. The main role of the Group, stationed in North Africa, was to gain air superiority over the battlefields of Sicily and southern Italy. Their bomber downed seventeen Luftwaffe fighters in the process. The title, "Wingtips in the Waist Windows," reflects the tight three-ship formation which allowed the crew the best fields of fire. Through Shields' diaries and correspondence, readers learn the personal details about his growing up on a working farm in southwest Iowa, his enlistment soon after Pearl Harbor through his days as a cadet, and his journey becoming Yankee Doodle's pilot and aircraft commander. His letters, which were often censored, and the ones he received cover the war's end and his return home. Learning to fly through a civilian pilot training program in college, he went through primary, basic and advanced flight training. Assigned to the newly formed 99th Bomb Group, he and his nine crew members took possession of a new B-17F bomber (S/N 229473 Yankee Doodle) at Salina, Kansas. From there, the Group headed for North Africa through South America in early 1943. By this time, the war was in its fourth year, and the US had been in European combat about six months, hence operations were sometimes ad hoc. Bombing operations against the Nazis began from a remote base in Algeria, then moved to a base near Tunis in early August 1943 to be closer to their targets. Details of these early North African missions were largely preserved through personal writings of the crews and ground teams serving in those airfields between March and September 1943. The 99th Bomb Group flew fifty successful missions, first helping to drive Germany and Italy from North Africa in May 1943, then in the invasion of Sicily in June 1943. From Tunisia, they supported the Salerno landings in September 1943 in southern Italy. Shields returned to the States, married his sweetheart, and finished his military service assigned as an instructor to B-17 crew final training in Rapid City, South Dakota. The author has included first-person interviews, all cross-checked with further historical research. He has used extensive references and documented resources to amplify these accounts. In the process, he found people who served in the same outfit and happily told their stories. Shields grew up in southwest Iowa, north of Red Oak, on a multi-crop, multi-livestock farm that his father, who was considered progressive, ran with a firm hand. When the electrical grid reached their farm, Shields and his father learned how to weld. While living in the Sahara, Shields fashioned a washing machine using the borrowed motor of the base ambulance. During the war and throughout his entire life, Shields' aptitude and experience with machines proved essential for his company and him, keeping his and other planes in the air.

About the Author :
Charles Huston (Hugh) Shields is the pilot's son and author. Initially, he began transcribing the plethora of his father's personal documents and the letters between his parents, intending to build a chronology of their WWII experiences to share with their grandchildren. His interest in history and curiosity about mechanical things led him deeper into the story. Hugh attended Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Southern California (mechanical engineering), then worked in flight testing, hydraulic construction equipment, sawmill machinery, high-pressure waterjet manufacturing, and high-tech batteries.