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The Road to War Palm Springs Air Museum - A Beginner's Guide Palm Springs Air Museum - Secondary Curriculum Guide
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While many books document World War II, it can be difficult to find how the world got to the tipping point.
This 70-page creation of the museum's staff outlines the events that brought both hemispheres into conflict. With illustrations on every page, a reader can get a quick, broad-brush view of the events that finally involved the world in conflict. Readers of all ages will appreciate it. 		This is a primary-school curriculum guide developed by Dr. Priscilla H. Porter, California State University San Bernardino.
Activities, projects, and a background narrative will involve any child in a visit to the museum. And you'll find it involving, too. 		This is a high-school curriculum guide developed by Dr. Priscilla H. Porter, California State University San Bernardino.
This 120-page book can be used without a museum tour to foster students' understanding of a crucial period in American History.
The curriculum is comprised of nine lessons and 54 reproducible handouts, with appendices relating the curriculum to California Standards
Vintage Aircraft Nose Art Warbird Legends Just Doing My Job
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This is an unprecedented collection of the unique American Art that graced military aircraft in WWII and the Korean War. This art reflected the personalities of the air and ground crews and gave each aircraft the identity and attitude it carried into battle.
Every page is filled with images, many in color, and most including the air crews. The playful artwork and creative names show that the crews retained their sense of humor during their hazardous duty.

Gary M. Valant
Paperback,  208 pgs. 10"x12" 		This beautiful book examines 20 of WWII’s notable aircraft with 80 period photos and 180 in-flight color images of currently-flying examples. The text is illuminated with quotations from pilots who flew them.
The color photos are tack-sharp, and the balance of text-to-image is spot on. If you like warbirds, you’ll love this book.

John M. Dibbs
Paperback,  244 pgs. 9"x13" 		This book presents the profiles of civilians and soldiers whose extraordinary actions changed the course of WWII. From soldiers and spies to factory workers and nurses, this unique oral history tells the stories of ordinary citizens who responded to the call to action by putting their lives on hold to fight for their country at home and abroad. And as the granddaughter of General Jimmy Doolittle, the author knows heroes.

Jonna Doolittle Hoppes
Hardcover,  344 pgs.
Runways in the Sand To Fly and Fight: Memoirs of a Triple Ace A Marine Named Mitch
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During WWII, the deserts of the Southwest were sprinkled with military air fields, and most returned to the desert with the end of the war. This book is a pictorial essay of one of those fields, the Blythe Army Air Base, examined in amazing detail; it provides a microcosmic look at what happened all over America's deserts.

Art Wilson
Hardcover, 128pgs. 8˝"x 11" 		Bud Anderson, a California farm boy who loved hot cars and airplanes, earned his wings in the Army Air Corps in September 1942. Anderson flew 116 missions in P-51 Mustangs and shot down 17 enemy planes without receiving a single hit to his own plane. Not stopping at the end of WWII, he then served in the Korean War and Vietnam, and as a test pilot.

This work has received acclaim from the Library Journal to Ernest K. Gann. An exceptional account of an exceptional man.

Col Clarence E. "Bud" Anderson
Hardcover 306 pgs. 		Here is a story of a small town country boy, imbued with precious love of family and American history, who joins the U.S. Marines to see the world in search of adventure about which so many red blooded American boys dream. Mitch Paige joined the Marines in 1936 after growing up in a working-class family in post-depression New Jersey. Needless to say, he found more adventure than he bargained for; starting with Japanese invasion of China.

This is a well-written story of an average guy thrust into WWII—from beginning to end. With over two dozen of the author's photos.

Col Mitchell Paige
Softcover 235 pgs.
Aviation Visionary: "Smilin' Jack" Conroy Tale of the Tiger The Man and his Wings
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Jack Conroy, the creator of the Pregnant Guppy, believed in his visions and didn’t tolerate naysayers. Conroy sold the stock he had in the company that operated the Guppys and started the Conroy Aircraft Corporation, which is where this story begins. During its five years of existence, Conroy's creative genius and individuality took the company on an exciting roller-coaster ride.
The authors were with Smilin' Jack from the very conception of the Conroy Aircraft Corporation to its heart-wrenching demise; and bring this saga to life for the reader’s enjoyment.

Robert R. Kirby & George M. Warner
Softcover 239 pgs. 		After WWII were days of halcyon growth for airlines in the U.S., and one of the carriers born in that time was the Flying Tiger Line. Under-equipped and under-staffed, the freight and contract line was carried by the dedication and enthusiasm of its people, and among those was Fran Drew, Senior Flight Stewardess.

While this book is represented as a work of fiction, you’ll have to wonder how much of it is barely removed from fact. A great read by a woman who lived the story.

Fran Drew
Softcover 229 pgs. 		"Wild Bill" Wellman wasn't Paramount Pictures' first choice to direct the WWI epic Wings (1927), but as a former fighter pilot and war hero, he was the right choice. He managed to finish the big-budget war saga by inventing many of the techniques still used to film aerial battle scenes. The film broke box office records and earned its studio its first Academy Award.

In thist first-ever biography, the director's son reveals the war hero, family man, occasional prankster, and underestimated visionary who changed Hollywood forever.

William Wellman Jr.
Hardcover 183 pgs.
Hollywood Buzz Calculated Risk For Love of Life and Country
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Margit Liesche's second Pucci Lewis mystery takes the WWII Women Airforce Service Pilot to Hollywood, where one of her sister pilots, Frankie Beall, has crashed under suspicious circumstances while shooting an important training film. As the injured Beall's replacement, Lewis must complete the film and quietly investigate the crash. The murder of a celebrated director raises the stakes.

Liesche provides plenty of interesting WASP lore while deftly mixing the real and imagined.

Margit Liesche
Hardcover 283 pgs. 		Calculated Risk is a firsthand account written by his granddaughter that brings readers inside the public and private world of Jimmy Doolittle and his family, and sheds light on the drives and motivation of one of America's greatest heroes.

The book also features many never-before-seen photographs from the Doolittle Library archives.

Jonna Doolittle Hoppes
Hardcover 332 pgs. 		This book details the life of Dean Hunter, from the Boy Scouts of America, into the U.S. Marine Corps, and on to combat in Korea. From there, twenty-seven years in the Air Force as a pilot and five years flying fighters in Southeast Asia.

The stories related here are humorous, thoughtful, tragic, and joyous — as American as John Wayne and apple pie.

Dean Hunter
Hardcover 402 pgs.
Shir-Ella A Fighter Pilot in Buchenwald An Innocent at Polebrook
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In just three days from September1, 1939,more than one-and-a-half million people were taken from British towns and cities into the country, exiled from their homes by the threat of massive air raids. One million of those were children, many traveling in school parties and each carrying a gas mask and a suitcase of clothes.

Shirley Coombs and Ella Grimmer, who were part of the mass evacuation of children to the English countryside during WWII, have co-written this memoir, Shir-Ella. Shirley now lives in Palm Springs with her husband, and her sister Ella still lives in the family home in England.

Ella Grimmer & Shirley Coombs
Softcover 175 pgs. 		Joe Moser grew up on a small farm in Washington and dreamed of becoming a fighter pilot He realized his dream, was sent to Europe and survived 43 missions. But on August 13, 1944, on his 44th combat mission, his dream was shattered. He was shot down, and his life became a nightmare.

Scheduled for execution as terrorfliegers, he was shipped in a cattle car to Buchenwald, where tens of thousands died of cruelty, medical experiments, and starvation. You’ll share the harrowing and sometimes hilarious experiences of flight training, sense the terror of a rookie fighter pilot, and then observe as never before the dehumanization that was Buchenwald.

Joseph F. Moser
Softcover 205 pgs. 		This is a true story about an innocent 18-year old, plucked from his small hometown in California, who found himself riding in the nose of a heavy bomber under conditions he could not possibly have imagined.  The book explores the excruciating tension between his innocence and the raw reality of war.

This book follows the everyday activities of a bombardier in the 8th Air Force during WWII. There are no heroics in this account other than the courage of men who performed their jobs despite withering enemy fire and the specter of sudden death.

Charles N. Stevens
Softcover 285 pgs.
The Stone Must Break A Pilot: First, Last and Always When Flying was Fun!
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Pearl Harbor and the tentacles of Word War II turn San Francisco into a raucous, electrifying city. Twenty-year-old Carmel St. John moves into this maelstrom with dreams of winning the heart of Dr. Phillip Barron and becoming a big band singer.

This novel tells the saga of two families, the St. Johns and the Barrons, as they grapple with tragedy, love, and responsibility in a world at war.

Jean Lee Porter
Softcover 421 pgs. 		This book gives you a taste of military life spread from 1942 to 1974. From life in the cockpit, to life in the Pentagon, Vaughn Denning takes you through his fascinating career.

Vaughn flew over 45 different types of airplanes, from bi-planes to Mach 2 fighters; serving as a test pilot to a transport pilot. And then, to Washington, D.C. for the toughest duty of all.

Vaughn E. Denning
Softcover 501 pgs. 		When Flying Was Fun! is an autobiographical collection of aviation anecdotes covering four decades of flying, starting with the sixties. These humorous and sometimes poignant stories are told from a first person perspective by the author, who was a naval aviator during the Vietnam War and spent over thirty years as an airline pilot with United Airlines.

These memoirs relate to those days when pilots actually flew airplanes, before the days of “glass cockpits”.

Bill Eads
Softcover 392 pgs.
Pancho — The Biography of Florence Lowe Barnes Piloto — Migrant Worker to Jet Pilot
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Published in 1996, this is a well-researched and well-written book about Pancho Barnes, the most outrageous of all the early women flyers.  

She tested planes for Lockheed; wrote scripts for director Erich von Stroheim; worked with Howard Hughes on Hell's Angels, his multimillion-dollar flying epic; and founded the Association of Motion Picture Pilots, and ran the Happy Bottom Riding Club, the ultimate debriefing bar for Edwards Air Force Base test pilots.  

Barbara Hunter Schultz
Softcover 244 pgs. 		Piloto tells the story of Hank Cervantes, son of migrant field workers, who rose above the poverty and hardship of Central California's sweltering farm fields to become one of only a handful of Mexican-American pilots in the annals of the United States Air Force. His trials and triumphs as an anomaly in the tight fraternity of Caucasian pilots follow the Air Force's transformation from the B-17 battle wagons of WWII to the Strategic Air command's supersonic B-58 Hustler.

Provocative, witty, and intensely personal, Piloto offers a fascinating portrait of a pioneer who helped pave the way for today's Latino men and women pilots--and for all those who will fly into the future.

LtCol Henry Cervantes USAF (ret.)
Softcover 253 pgs.