Serenade to the Big Bird
The True Account of Life and Death from Inside a B-17 Cockpit in WWII
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Narrated by:
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Gary MacFadden
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By:
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Bert Stiles
About this listen
This is the nonfiction memoir of a young pilot, Bert Stiles, who flew 35 missions in the B-17 Flying Fortress over Germany and Italy during World War II. At 22 years of age, Stiles left college and joined the American Air Force. The next year he began his tour of duty as a copilot of a B-17, flying missions high over Germany, Italy, and other European targets, bombing cities far below.
Stiles was assigned to the 401st Bomb Squadron, 91st Bomb Group at Bassingbourn, England. He initially flew missions with 2nd Lieutenant Sam Newton, who had been a fraternity brother at Colorado College. Their first bombing mission, to Kassel, Germany, was flown on April 19, 1944. The crew flew an average of two to three missions each week, often on consecutive days. Stiles tells of bombing strategic targets in Germany, V-1 "buzzbomb" launch sites, and targets in France in preparation for Operation Overlord, or D-Day.
Unlike other published mission logs, Serenade to the Big Bird reveals the day-to-day activities, the hours of boring flight to the targets, the moments of terror caused by flack and enemy fighters, the climactic bomb run, and the long hours of flight back to the airdrome. The author touches on random thoughts while piloting the bombers, the disillusionment in their missions, the moments of sudden realization that a comrade you saw at breakfast won't be returning, and the overwhelming weariness experienced by the bomber crews.
Stiles also outlines his dreams for a future that does not include war...a future he ultimately does not get to experience. After the completion of his 35 missions in the B-17, Bert Stiles refused a transfer to the US as a flight instructor and instead transitioned to the P-51 Mustang fighter. During his 16th mission in his second tour, Stiles was killed in enemy action at the age of 23 while flying a bomber support mission.
His journal-style memoir, Serenade to the Big Bird, was published posthumously.
©2016 Bert Stiles (P)2021 MacFadden VoiceListeners also enjoyed...
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- Narrated by: uncredited
- Length: 4 hrs and 51 mins
- Abridged
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As a young man growing up in Asheville, North Carolina, Robert Morgan was a fast-driving party boy - a hell-raiser. But when his mother committed suicide upon learning she had inoperable brain cancer, Morgan's life changed dramatically. He was no longer a carefree playboy; he was a man searching for meaning. He found that meaning at the controls of an airplane, and in the flak-and fighter-filled skies over Occupied France and Nazi Germany.
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Abridged Version = Butchered
- By Kyle on 01-03-17
By: Robert Morgan, and others
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The Philosopher's Flight
- A Novel
- By: Tom Miller
- Narrated by: Gibson Frazier
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Eighteen-year-old Robert Weekes is a practitioner of empirical philosophy - an arcane, female-dominated branch of science used to summon the wind, shape clouds of smoke, heal the injured, and even fly. Though he dreams of fighting in the Great War as the first male in the elite US Sigilry Corps Rescue and Evacuation Service - a team of flying medics - Robert is resigned to mixing batches of philosophical chemicals and keeping the books for the family business in rural Montana, where his mother, a former soldier and vigilante, aids the locals.
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Brilliant multi layered story
- By Kent Lanigan on 02-21-18
By: Tom Miller
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The Pearl Thief
- By: Elizabeth Wein
- Narrated by: Maggie Service
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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From the internationally acclaimed best-selling author of Code Name Verity comes a stunning new story of pearls, love and murder. Sixteen-year-old Julie Beaufort-Stuart is returning to her family's ancestral home in Perthshire for one last summer. It is not an idyllic return to childhood. Her grandfather's death has forced the sale of the house and estate, and this will be a summer of good-byes. Not least to the McEwen family - Highland travellers who have been part of the landscape for as long as anyone can remember.
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Freshwater Pearls and Scottish Plaid
- By Cynthia on 08-14-17
By: Elizabeth Wein
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I'm Staying with My Boys
- The Heroic Life of Sgt. John Basilone, USMC
- By: Jim Proser, Jerry Cutter
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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I'm Staying with My Boys is a firsthand look inside the life of one of the greatest heroes of the Greatest Generation. Sgt. John Basilone held off 3000 Japanese troops at Guadalcanal after his 15-member unit was reduced to three men. At Iwo Jima he single-handedly destroyed an enemy blockhouse, allowing his unit to capture an airfield. Minutes later he was killed by an enemy artillery round. He was the only Marine in World War II to have received the Medal of Honor, the Navy Cross, and a Purple Heart.
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Devil Dogs!
- By Skip Drake on 10-25-18
By: Jim Proser, and others
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Once They Were Eagles
- The Men of the Black Sheep Squadron
- By: Frank Walton
- Narrated by: David Randall Hunter
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Marine Corps Fighter Squadron 214 was hastily organized in the field during World War II to meet the urgent need for another combat squadron in the South Pacific. The squadron, self-named the "Black Sheep", went on under the leadership of the swashbuckling "Pappy" Boyington to become the most famous in Marine Corps history. Now comes the true story of the Black Sheep Squadron and the men who wrote its record in the Pacific skies.
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great insight at the leyendary squadron
- By Ernesto morales on 04-28-18
By: Frank Walton
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This Is Minuteman: Two, Three...Go!
- Memoirs of a Helicopter Pilot in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan
- By: Wayne Chasson
- Narrated by: Rodney Miles
- Length: 5 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Relive six decades of flying helicopters, including an extended tour in Vietnam and the mountains of Afghanistan, with a little Iraq, Kuwait, and National Guard thrown in. This is Minuteman: Two, Three…Go! recounts Wayne Chasson’s times, from the early, young, and dumb days to becoming a more seasoned pilot of Huey and other helicopters in three American wars and the National Guard here at home. Chasson relives it all for us in this gritty and honest memoir — with humility, humor, and gratitude — as he himself is still trying to figure out how he made it through alive.
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Great story
- By Amazon Customer on 04-20-24
By: Wayne Chasson
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Hitler's War
- By: Harry Turtledove
- Narrated by: John Allen Nelson
- Length: 17 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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The New York Times best-selling master of alternate history delivers the captivating first novel in his new World War II series. Harry Turtledove imagines how the war in Europe would have ended had British prime minister Chamberlain refused to allow Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland.
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Interesting
- By B Daigle on 01-04-10
By: Harry Turtledove
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In Pharaoh's Army
- Memories of the Lost War
- By: Tobias Wolff
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Whether he is evoking the blind carnage of the Tet offensive, the theatrics of his fellow Americans, or the unraveling of his own illusions, Wolff brings to this work the same uncanny eye for detail, pitiless candor, and mordant wit that made This Boy's Life a modern classic.
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Boring Waste of Time
- By Ethan on 08-21-22
By: Tobias Wolff
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Guts 'N Gunships
- What It Was Really Like to Fly Combat Helicopters in Vietnam
- By: Mark Garrison
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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In the summer of 1967, Mark Garrison had dropped out of college at Southern Illinois University just before entering his third year. He had run out of money and had to work for a while. These were the days before the lottery and the draft soon came calling. In order to somewhat control his own future, he enlisted in the US Army's helicopter flight school program. Little did he know that this adventure would be the most profound experience of his life.
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Fascinating
- By Jean on 04-25-16
By: Mark Garrison
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The Hunters
- A Novel
- By: James Salter
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Captain Cleve Connell has already made a name for himself among pilots when he arrives in Korea during the war there to fly the newly operational F-86 fighters against the Soviet MIGs. His goal, like that of every fighter pilot, is to chalk up enough kills to become an ace. But things do not turn out as expected.
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The Hunters
- By Nicholas on 10-25-15
By: James Salter
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Pucker Factor 10
- Memoir of a US Army Helicopter Pilot in Vietnam
- By: James Joyce
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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The author was drawn into the United States Army through ROTC, and he went through training to fly helicopters in combat over Vietnam. His experiences are notable because he flew both Huey “Slicks” and Huey “Gunships”: the former on defense as he flew troops into battle, and the latter on offense as he took the battle to the enemy. Through this book, the author relives his experiences flying and fighting, with special attention given to his and other pilots’ day-to-day lives.
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gunship crew chief point of view.
- By Anonymous User on 02-12-20
By: James Joyce
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Bomber Pilot: A Memoir of World War II
- By: Philip Ardery
- Narrated by: James Killavey
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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"The sky was full of dying airplanes" as American Liberator bombers struggled to return to North Africa after their daring low-level raid on the oil refineries of Ploesti. They lost 446 airmen and 53 planes, but Philip Ardery's plane came home. This pilot was to take part in many more raids on Hitler's Europe, including air cover for the D-Day invasion of Normandy. This vivid firsthand account records one man's experience of World War II air warfare.
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Fascinating...and true story
- By Loretta on 06-24-15
By: Philip Ardery
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Dispatches
- By: Michael Herr
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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From its terrifying opening to its final eloquent words, Dispatches makes us see, in unforgettable and unflinching detail, the chaos and fervor of the war and the surreal insanity of life in that singular combat zone. Michael Herr’s unsparing, unorthodox retellings of the day-to-day events in Vietnam take on the force of poetry, rendering clarity from one of the most incomprehensible and nightmarish events of our time.
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All of the reviews are correct.
- By Mark Thoreson on 01-18-22
By: Michael Herr
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MOB VI: A Seal Team Six Operator's Battles in the Fight for Good over Evil
- By: Justin K. Sheffield
- Narrated by: Justin K. Sheffield
- Length: 4 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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There are special forces. There are US Navy SEALs. There is the select and secretive group of highly trained operators known as SEAL Team Six or MOB VI as they like to call it. And then there is Justin Sheffield. When it comes to talking about the most experienced, effective, and deadly warriors in the world, Sheffield is part of an exclusive group that can be counted on one hand. This audiobook is uncompromising, raw, violent, and real.
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Fast read /listen
- By G Bonsonto on 12-12-20
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Fighter Pilot
- The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds
- By: Robin Olds, Christina Olds, Ed Rasimus
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 17 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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A larger-than-life hero with a towering personality, Robin Olds was a graduate of West Point and an inductee in the National College Football Hall of Fame for his All-American performance for Army. In World War II, Olds quickly became a top fighter pilot and squadron commander by the age of 22—a double ace with twelve aerial victories. But it was in Vietnam where the man became a legend.
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Top Notch Audiobook
- By R. A. Frank on 10-08-10
By: Robin Olds, and others
What listeners say about Serenade to the Big Bird
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Tai
- 06-24-24
The honesty of the author
This book is both raw and cultivated, and I found it to be one of the best war memoirs of any war that I have read.
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