“…a riveting story of the mid-20th century bomber era and those that performed the mission.”
General Norton “Norty” Schwartz, USAF, Retired, former Chief of Staff, United State Air Force
VBC member and retired Army officer Jim Blackwell is generously offering a free copy of his new book, Gunners! B-29 Machine Gunners in the Korean War, to Veterans Breakfast Club readers. Just order the paperback, kindle, or audio version of the book below through a link, and the VBC will have it shipped to your doorstep or sent to your reading or listening device.
Jim makes this offer to the VBC and its members and also to those who served in the US Armed Forces. Even if you don’t order the book for yourself, he says, order one and give it to a veteran to thank them, their friends and family, for their service and to let them know their story is timeless and true.
Jim has focused his recent research and writing on the Korean War, in part, because it is so often forgotten. The air war over Korea and the critical role of the B-29 are especially glossed over in histories. Gunners! B-29 Machine Gunners in the Korean War restores their rightful place. It’s an authoritative account of unheralded Airmen who completed their Korean War mission. Told in their own words and backed by archival sources.
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Since his retirement from the U.S. Army in 1987, Dr. James Blackwell has conducted research and analysis on military concepts, strategy and technology, serving as Director of Political Military Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and at several corporate organizations under contract to the Department of Defense and other government agencies, including a number of seminal studies for the Office of Net Assessment. He was Cable News Network’s full-time military analyst during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and was Fox News Channel’s founding Military Analyst.
Dr. Blackwell was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at West Point from 1982 to 1985 and has developed and taught a number of graduate-level courses for government. He was Executive Director for two major Department of Defense investigations (Detention Operations in 2004 and Nuclear Weapons Management in 2008) and from 2009 to 2016 served in the United States Air Force as Special Advisor to the Assistant Chief of Staff for Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration. Dr. Blackwell was Research Staff Member at the Institute for Defense Analyses and currently teaches Military Strategy and the History of Nations for the Bush School of Government & Public Service at Texas A&M University.
Gunners! B-29 Gunners in the Korean War, gives voice to ten ordinary men who rose to extraordinary accomplishments, then came home to lead ordinary lives. This powerful collection offers a rare, intimate look before their stories fade from living memory.
Their journey did not end in the skies over the Korean peninsula. These Veterans, their families and friends, still carry invisible burdens, unseen wounds that linger long after the uniform is folded away. America needs their quiet strength now more than ever – a reminder that discipline, determination, and devotion still matter.
Most books wrongly tell you that the B-29 was outclassed, obsolete, and irrelevant to the ground war. Popular accounts label the B-29 record as “Black Thursday,” “Black Tuesday,” “Driven from the Skies,” and other such misguided interpretations. Few tell of how the Air Force continuously adapted aerial warfare technology, tactics, techniques and procedures to achieve command of the skies. None capture the essence of these resilient men who were born and raised in the era of bread lines, blackouts, ration books and radio static.
Gunners! authoritatively documents their inspirational war stories with:
- Official data showing that B-29 gunners destroyed 1-1/2 times more MiG-15s than did communist fighter jets over US bombers.
- A plain language description of the complex remote control turret system that employed the first electronic computers used in combat.
- How Air Force Prisoners of War outsmarted their captors despite communist torture, starvation and indoctrination.
- Why B-29 crews loved running low on fuel after a mission and had to fuel up in Japan enroute to home base on Okinawa. The mess halls at US Air Bases in Japan served fresh eggs rather than the canned powdered eggs that were standard fare at Kadena.
