Spitfire Wingman from Tennessee
My Love Affair with Flight
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Narrated by:
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Colonel James R. Haun
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James Robert Haun Jr.
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David Hoffman
About this listen
As the memoir of an aerobatic master born to fling his body through cloudbanks, Spitfire Wingman from Tennessee offers a unique birds-eye view of events and personalities of WWII and the Cold War. Encounters with Patton, Vandenberg, Yeager, Truman and Nixon are replayed with perception and wit. While jockeying P-40s, P-51s, and P-47s, he was privileged to see the war both from twenty thousand feet and as a Staff Officer at 9th Air Force HQ in Brussels. A stripped-down Thunderbolt fighter-bomber became his personal 400-mph runabout. Jim Haun took life at a run. After his mother’s death just before his ninth birthday, he worked in turn as Western Union bicycle messenger for fifteen dollars a week and work-a-way galley helper on an aging Atlantic freighter. Then, as the Memphis ‘Boy Wonder’ who built his first airplane in 1933 by adapting a motorcycle engine, the Colonel bears nostalgic witness to historic transformations steering manned flight from art toward automated science. This gifted flyer takes you on an intimate journey from barnstormer to dog-fighter, to threading the Himalayan ‘Hump’, to Berlin Airlift commander, then on to Presidential Squadron leader – finally becoming Chief Pilot of MATS. Balancing dry humor with just enough technical detail to please aviation buffs, this self-revealing air-venture thunders on twelve cylinders with sky-sweeping appeal. After retirement from the Air Force in 1965, Haun spent thirty more years as beloved flight instructor, participating in air shows, and building a biplane in his garage. He died peacefully at home attended by his two sons in 2001, six months before his 90th birthday.
©2006 James R. Haun, Jr., David Welch Haun (P)2010 James R. Haun, Jr., David Welch Haun, David Joseph HoffmanListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
A few years after his release from a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp, in 1973, Colonel Joseph Kittinger retired from the Air Force. Restless and unchallenged, he turned to ballooning, a lifelong passion as well as a constant diversion for his imagination during his imprisonment. His primary goal was a solitary circumnavigation of the globe, and in its pursuit he set several ballooning distance records, including the first solo crossing of the Atlantic in 1984. But the aeronautical feats that first made him an American hero had occurred a quarter of a century earlier....
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A rewarding read
- By Andrew Braddick on 03-25-13
By: Joe Kittinger, and others
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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 Wrong Stuff
- The Adventures and Misadventures of an 8th Air Force Aviator
- By: Truman Smith
- Narrated by: James Killavey
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Between April and July 1944, Truman Smith flew 35 bombing missions over France and Germany. He was only 20 years old. Although barely adults, Smith and his peers worried about cramming a lifetime's worth of experience into every free night, each knowing he probably would not survive the next bombing mission. Written with blunt honesty, wry humor, and insight, The Wrong Stuff is Smith's gripping memoir of that time.
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Why I got it...and glad I did.
- By Marie on 11-27-14
By: Truman Smith
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A Race to Freedom
- The Mira Slovak Story
- By: David Williams
- Narrated by: Brian Callanan
- Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Mira Slovak was born in Czechoslovakia and endured both the Nazi occupation and the brutal Russian liberation. He joined the Czech Air Force, rising to captain by the age of 21. When he could no longer tolerate life under the Communists, he hijacked an airliner and flew across the Iron Curtain to freedom. He outlasted communism, and when it collapsed in 1990, he returned to his home, only to realize his true home was and always would be the US.
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Free to live as an American.
- By cosmitron on 06-08-18
By: David Williams
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The Wild Blue
- The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany
- By: Stephen E. Ambrose
- Narrated by: Jeffrey DeMunn
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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The very young men who flew the B24s over Germany in World War II against terrible odds were an exemplary band of brothers. In The Wild Blue, Stephen Ambrose recounts their extraordinary brand of heroism, skill, daring, and comradeship. Stephen Ambrose describes how the Army Air Forces recruited, trained, and chose those few who would undertake the most demanding and dangerous jobs in the war.
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Required Reading
- By Lyle on 11-22-11
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Finish Forty and Home
- The Untold World War II Story of B-24s in the Pacific
- By: Phil Scearce
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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During the early years of World War II in the Pacific theatre, against overwhelming odds, young American airmen flew the longest and most perilous bombing missions of the war. They faced determined Japanese fighters without fighter escort, relentless anti-aircraft fire with no deviations from target, and thousands of miles of over-water flying with no alternative landing sites.
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Pretty Good!
- By Robert on 02-01-13
By: Phil Scearce
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Hero Found
- The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War
- By: Bruce Henderson
- Narrated by: Todd McLaren
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In February 1966, U.S. Navy pilot Dieter Dengler was shot down over "neutral Laos". He crashed deep in territory controlled by North Vietnamese army regulars and the communist Pathet Lao, who would eventually capture him and hold him prisoner in a fortified jungle prisoner-of-war camp.
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Extremely interesting and well-written!
- By Matthew on 08-28-10
By: Bruce Henderson
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A Thousand Shall Fall
- The True Story of a Canadian Bomber Pilot in World War Two
- By: Murray Peden
- Narrated by: Anthony Haden Salerno
- Length: 19 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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During World War II, Canada trained tens of thousands of airmen under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. Those selected for Bomber Command operations went on to rain devastation upon the Third Reich in the great air battles over Europe, but their losses were high. German fighters and anti-aircraft guns took a terrifying toll. The chances of surviving a tour of duty as a bomber crew were almost nil.
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Brilliant account of WW2 flying
- By John on 06-14-17
By: Murray Peden
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The First Heroes
- The Extraordinary Story of the Doolittle Raid
- By: Craig Nelson
- Narrated by: Raymond Todd
- Length: 17 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Immediately after Japan's December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt sought to restore the honor of the United States with a dramatic act of vengeance: a retaliatory bombing raid on Tokyo itself. In those early days of World War II, America was ill-prepared for any sort of warfare. But FDR was not to be dissuaded, and at his bidding a squadron of scarcely trained army fliers, led by the famous daredevil Jimmy Doolittle, set forth on what everyone regarded as a suicide mission.
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Heroic Attempt
- By William on 07-20-04
By: Craig Nelson
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Mission
- Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe
- By: Robert Matzen, Leonard Maltin - foreward
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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In March 1941 Jimmy Stewart, America's boy next door and recent Academy Award winner, left fame and fortune behind and joined the United States Army Air Corps to fulfill his family mission and serve his country. He rose from private to colonel and participated in 20 often-brutal World War II combat missions over Germany and France. In mere months the war took away his boyish looks as he faced near-death experiences and the loss of men under his command. The war finally won, he returned home with millions of other veterans to face an uncertain future.
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SKIP THIS ONE
- By G-Man on 05-13-18
By: Robert Matzen, and others
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Crossing the Line
- A Bluejacket's World War II Odyssey
- By: Alvin Kernan
- Narrated by: Ted Stoddard
- Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
- Abridged
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A gifted storyteller, Kernan gives a candid account of his experiences during World War II, providing shrewd observations about the culture and ideology of an important era in naval history.
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Good, But I Prefer Silent Running
- By Wolfpacker on 07-22-08
By: Alvin Kernan
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Man Who Flew The Memphis Belle
- By: Robert Morgan, Ron Powers
- 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
What listeners say about Spitfire Wingman from Tennessee
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- CSmith
- 07-24-14
Fantastic! A must for any aviation enthusiast.
What made the experience of listening to Spitfire Wingman from Tennessee the most enjoyable?
Listening to the author tell his life story in his own voice is what made the listening experience unforgetable. The Colonel lived and breathed aviation from the early days before regulations or the FAA through the modern aircraft of today. He was an excellent story teller and remembers details that most people couldn't recall even a year or two later. Hearing his story in his own "whisky scared" voice makes this book an epic tale. I finished listening to it and immediately started it over. It is truly that good.
Who was your favorite character and why?
The author and narrator Colonel James R. Haun. I feel like I know him after listening. His stories of flying some of the very first commercial aircraft, WWII, the Berlin Airlift, and being on the presidential wing are amazing. I also feel like his stories are honest accounts without the embellishments that litter other similar autobiographies. He never aimed to impress and in doing so has impressed me greatly.
What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
As said above the narrator is the author and something about hearing the story direclty from the horse's mouth is what makes this book better than all the others. The Colonel recorded this himself in his living room and the quality has its ups and downs but this just adds to the character of the book. Some listeners may have trouble understanding him but since I am from Tennessee I had no problem understanding this southern gentleman's draw.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
The Colonel's tales made me laugh out loud on multiple occasions. Memorable moments are his description of his plan to bail out over the English channel, his description of the first plane he flew with an ejection seat, and he and his wife's visit to the hospital for physicals come to mind.
Any additional comments?
If you are a history buff or are even remotely interested in aviation this is a must listen book.
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- David
- 10-15-12
Audio quality is sometimes poor
Interesting story told by the man himself. He sure loved to fly. You just can't miss that in the story. You may want to google all the various planes he flew over the years. You also get the sense how much he longed to be a fighter pilot on operations. Author had a long career with the Air Force and was a bit of character. Interesting little story,
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- Spike
- 01-13-19
Every Person in America Should Read this book
What an amazing life and a what a character. I wish I could have known him or atleast met him.
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- John
- 12-20-11
a good yarn
What didn’t you like about the narrators’s performance?
The colonel was hard to listen at first, but you soon became accustomed to his accent. It wa s a great story and I really enjoyed it until the last chapter. I take great offence at having a religous sermon jammed down my kneck when I paid for a flying story. I shut it off so I didn't have to listen to the crap. It wrecked a good listen.
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- Walt
- 10-01-11
Spitfire Wingman from Tennessee
Good story and great individual. Unfortunately, author in his 86th year reading into a hand held tape recorder.
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3 people found this helpful