The Chow-hound
The Mighty Eighth Air Corps of the U.S. Army lost more combat veterans in the destructive maw of World War II than any other combat unit in the US military, yet these very young crew members climbed aboard their aircrafts daily and, in the leering face of death, ground down the Nazi infrastructure and combat units across the European Theater of Operations.
As the losses mounted, the tours of duty extended. Finally, the Chow-hound was assigned a “milk run” into the edge of France, where a direct hit at the waist of the ship separated the Chow-hound into three pieces at 14,000 feet. The plane and crew were doomed. But fate, human kindness, luck, scientific advancement and coincidence have transformed this ordinary combat loss into an extraordinary story that ripples across time and generations.
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Bruce Joel Brittain was born in a Navy hospital in January 1946 as his father served out his enlistment. Every male member from the previous generation of Bruce’s family served in uniform during World War II, and Bruce’s formative years were replete with family stories of service and sacrifice. When the call to arms came to Bruce in 1969, he served three years of active duty in the US Army. Thanks to the GI Bill, Bruce then added an advanced business degree to his undergraduate degree in journalism.
His career has included copy and speech writing, electronic and print media management, and market and marketing research design and execution. Bruce established a specialized research practice and became a sought-after conference speaker and interviewee for media outlets such as CNN, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, The New York Times, American Banker, and others. In 2005, Bruce walked away from corporate America to return to his writing roots. Bruce has published two other books: Marriage Roulette, a nonfiction booklet aimed at his children’s generation, and Brother Daniel’s Good New’s Revival, a historical novel.