Bombs Away: WW II Air Force Stories
James Lee Hutchinson, the author of "Bombs Away" and his first book "Through These Eyes", is now 83 years old. He was one of the 16 million young men and women callled to military service in WWII more than sixty-five years ago.They left farms and loved ones behind to travel half a world away when duty called, and endured hazards and heartaches beyond their imagination. They returned home changed men and women--if they came home at all. "Hutch" muses that living through a war has a way of putting everything else into perspective, and believes that the hardest of times stemming from the Great Depression prepared the youth for the hell that is war. Their attitudes and abilities earned them the moniker of the "Greatest Generation. Hutchinson grew up in the hills of southern Indiana and served 20 missions as a radio operator-gunner on a B-17 in the "Mighty Eighth", the most decorated U.S. Army Air Corps unit in World War II. He earned three air medals for his combat service. Returning home at the age of twenty he used the G.I. Bill to earn three degrees in education from Indiana University. He is retired from 37 years of service as a teacher and school administrator. February 2008, the author was honored on the floors of the Indiana General Assembly for his military service and the publication of his first book, "Through These Eyes". Hutchinson says, " I write to tell the present generation about my generation and the importance of being prepared to defend our country. I guess I'll always be an educator."