The real men and Mission of Joseph Heller's 340th Bomb Group in the
Second World War * Proof that any resemblance to persons living or dead in
Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 is, in fact, actual.
After the publication of his best-selling novel, Joseph Heller
usually chose to deny that any of his richly drawn characters were based on his
actual war mates. However, to those who served with Heller in the 340th Bomb
Group the novel’s characters were indeed recognisable; from the hard-drinking,
vengeful, and disillusioned Chief White Half Oat; young, sliced-in-half Kid
Sampson; shrieking, frenzied Hungry Joe; to Colonel Cathcart, Doc Dreedle,
Yossarian and that capitalist supreme, Milo Minderbinder.
In this book we finally encounter the real men and combat missions on
which the novel was based. Blending fact, fancy and history with full-blown
original illustrations and rare, previously unpublished photos of these daring
USAAF flyers and their Corsican-based B-25 Marauders, along with descriptions of
the 340th’s real wartime events, the work includes twelve men of the Bomb Group
relating twelve richly told tales of their own.
Now all of the men upon whom Heller based his characters are gone.
However, the last survivor, George L. Wells, was an extraordinary combat pilot
and the model for Catch-22s Captain Wren, and he is the common thread who weaves
through this book, allowing the reader to truly feel the war and even thumb
through George’s well-worn mission book describing attacks on Axis ports, ships,
bridges, and the notorious Brenner Pass.
