Overview

What manner of aircraft pioneered airborne radar and anti-submarine warfare, almost replaced the immortal Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, and yet disappeared from the annals of aviation history with not so much as a footnote in most authoritative histories of WWII? The elusive Douglas B-18 bomber. The very few stories that have appeared since the end of the war invariably spoke of the aircraft in crude and disparaging terms including the bomber that nobody wanted, but more than 30 surviving crew members who served aboard the aircraft had no such disparaging words. How could so many people be so wrong? Developed in parallel to the DC-1, the B-18 and it's obscure development, the handsome B-23 were precisely the right aircraft, at the right time, to help America defeat the serious Axis submarine threat in the Caribbean and train most of the B-17 crews who headed overseas. Serving in every theater of war, from Iceland, Canada and the U.S. Eastern Seaboard, through the Caribbean and Latin America to the remote Galapagos, Alaska, Hawaii, Java, Australia and the Philippines, the B-18 was lauded by crew members as a superb anti-submarine aircraft. Indeed, some were amongst the first USAAC aircraft to strike back at the invading Japanese forces in the Far East, and others were lost to both aerial and surface combat. For the first time, this in depth study of the development, operational units, series colors, wartime activities and full production list of these 340 aircraft combine with over 350 drawings and photographs to reveal the true impact of America's forgotten warriors.

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9780859791786

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Reviews

Easily supplants all previous B-18 and B-23 coverage. I savored every page. -- (12/17/2015) .. .in every regard a shining example for how to do a book if this kind in regards to research, organization, and presentation. -- (12/21/2015)

Easily supplants all previous B-18 and B-23 coverage. I savored every page. --David L. Veres Cybermodeler Online (12/17/2015)

Author Information

Dan Hagedorn, Sr., is Curator and Director of Collections at The Museum of Flight at historic Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington. He was previously Adjunct Curator and Research Team Leader at the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, for 19 years. Prior to that, he served in the U.S. Armed Forces for 27 years in leadership and intelligence positions worldwide and has, to date, authored 21 monographs or books detailing various aspects of aviation and aerospace history. In conjunction with the 150th Anniversary of the Smithsonian Institution, he was named an Unsung Hero of the Smithsonian Institution and was awarded the Orden Merito Santos-Dumont by the Brazilian Government for services to Latin American aviation history, in which he specializes. Having worked in the Graphic Design and Print Production world for most of his career, partnering with Hagedorn Sr. on the production of a father-son project became a reality in 2006 when they began assembling The Douglas B-18 and B-23: America's Forsaken Warriors project. Currently living in Tacoma, WA, he works remotely for George Mason University.

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