A World War II bomber navigator’s diary, documenting perilous missions, survival, sacrifice, and the legendary 90th Bomb Group

Pacific Airman: The World War II Journal of a B-24 Liberator Navigator presents the hand-written pocket diary of US Army Air Forces bomber navigator Edward S. Goode of West Virginia. Goode was a member of the 400th Bomber Squadron (the “Black Pirates”), part of the legendary 90th Bomb Group the “Jolly Rogers.” With approximately seventy-four combat missions to his credit and an Air Medal with six Oak Leaf clusters, Goode experienced the war close-up, with group losses and the horror of grisly deaths in and out of combat. 

The journal details costly bombing raids against Japanese targets, as well as the dangers of the Southwest Pacific area with its wild and unpredictable weather and terrain. Editor Robert A. Taylor also documents Goode’s failed postwar attempt to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism for the Peleliu bombing mission in 1944.

Taylor offers detailed historical and other context to the journal. Three appendixes comprise a guide for B-24 navigators’ duties and responsibilities, Goode’s own record of 90th Bomb Group losses for 1944–1945, and a hometown newspaper clipping announcing his return home. This book will appeal to readers interested in World War II history, military aviation, the Pacific theater, and firsthand wartime narratives.
 

Edward S. Goode (1915–1996) was a navigator on B-24 Liberator bombers during World War II.

Robert A. Taylor is professor emeritus of history and former dean at the Florida Institute of Technology. He is author of Rebel Storehouse: Florida’s Contribution to the Confederacy and coeditor of This War So Horrible: The Civil War Diary of Hiram Smith Williams and The Governors of Florida, among other works.