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Nanette : Her Pilot's Love Story by Edward Parks (1977)

(I would add an image of the cover but I do not want to hotlink an image that will likely disappear in a relatively short period of time. Plus I have reached my attachment limit. )

Pacific Wrecks: https://pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/p-39/nanette.html
 

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Aircraft History
Built by Bell in Buffalo, New York. Delivered to the U.S. Army Air Force (USAAF) as P-39N Airacobra serial number unknown. Disassembled and shipped overseas to the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) and reassembled.

Wartime History
Assigned to the 5th Air Force (5th AF), 35th Fighter Group (35th FG), 41st Fighter Squadron (41st FS) "The Flying Buzzsaws". Assigned to pilot Edwards Park Nickname "Nanette" with squadron letter N and nose number 74. During the middle of 1943, this Airacobra operated in New Guinea until at least early 1944. A single aircraft silhouette was painted on the left side of the nose indicating Park's single aerial victory claim on March 4, 1944 when he claimed a Ki-61 Tony piloting a P-47D Thunderbolt.

Edwards Park writes in Nanette:
"Nanette was the nickname of the author's P-39 Airacobra, a plane that he describe the type as "She is beautiful and graceful at her best, while quirky and difficult to handle when not lovingly handled." The metaphor of women and machine drives the author's descriptions of his love affair with this quirky mate. "Even the planes unique vibrations, like when the P-39's massive 37mm nose cannon is fired has a mild sexual stimulating feeling for the pilot who is nearly straddling the gun."

On November 7, 1943 while parked in a revetment at Nadzab Airfield, destroyed during a Japanese air raid by Ki-21 Sally bombers.

Nanette by Edwards Park pages 180, 182:
"On the next day 18 Japanese Betty Bombers [Ki-21 Sally] came high over Nadzab and dropped their load of antipersonnel 'daisy cutters' with devastating accuracy... and walked toward a thick black column of smoke fed by savage flames in one of our revetments. Nanette's revetment. She had received a direct hit. It took her half an hour to burn... Two other planes had been damaged; the alert shack was shredded by shrapnel; six pilots discovered that they had been nicked; and one crew chief had become a soggy red bundle of clothes at the bottom of a bomb scorched slit trench. It was the crew chief for [P-39 Airacobra] number 75 - the same man who had helped me get out of it when I had been shot up in that big raid on Moresby, all those months ago."

Relatives
Lisa Park (daughter)

References
Nanette page 180, 182
Angels Twenty by Edwards Park
Thanks to Lisa Park and Edward Rogers for additional information

Contribute Information
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Last Updated
March 7, 2023

 

 

Pacific Wrecks: https://pacificwrecks.com/reviews/nanette.html

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Nanette
Her Pilot's Love Story

Edward Parks flew in the South Pacific with the 35th Fighter Group, 41st Fighter Squadron, known as the "Flying Buzzsaws". Parks begins this book with an introduction and explanation. "Practically everything in this book actually happened, so it not really a novel. This book a wonderfully written with lavish visual descriptions and expression of the intangible feelings associated with being a young, impressionable inexperience, and far from home.

Nanette was the nickname of the author's P-39 Airacobra, a plane that he describe the type as "She is beautiful and graceful at her best, while quirky and difficult to handle when not lovingly handled." The metaphor of women and machine drives the author's descriptions of his love affair with this quirky mate. "Even the planes unique vibrations, like when the P-39's massive 37mm nose cannon is fired has a mild sexual stimulating feeling for the pilot who is nearly straddling the gun."

Parks openly admits he was not the best pilot, especially because of the quirks of P-39, like its tendency to ground loop if the take off or landing are fouled. According to him, under peacetime conditions, his poor flying would have washed him out of the Air Corps, but now they need everyone in the air. He honestly describes the smell of the cockpit of a warbird: the odor of aviation fuel and a trace of vomit. When all guns are fired, the cockpit fills with smoke. Upon landing, ones flight suit is drenched with sweat. Hardly as romantic an endeavor as the outside world would imaging.

Every page of the book is full of lavish descriptions. Unlike other narratives that deal mostly with the military details of their service, Parks devotes most of his narrative to the less tangible and more emotional side of what it was like to be a disposable pilot in a war being waged in an unfamiliar land. Descriptions like Parks first impressions of New Guinea, when he stepped out of his plane at Jackson Airfield (7-Mile Drome) near Port Moresby wrote: "The heat solid and palpable, smells rich enough to grow crops, the colors so sharp and pure they make your eyes wince. The sun has an undiffused brilliance and when it touches something green, like a leaf, it isn't your everyday humdrum leaf-green. It's nature's finest Goddamn green and it socks you right in the eyeball. The same with blue sky and black forest-tree trucks and red soil and white cumulus clouds and cobalt blue water and the red sun rising. The colors are so intense they make you visually drunk."

This book is a wonderful read for anyone who wants to learn what a young pilot in New Guinea was thinking and feeling. This book reads itself, and each page turn reveals more descriptions and revelations about what it was really like fly and fight in the Air Corps in New Guinea.

Also by Edwards Park: Angels Twenty: A Young American Flier A Long Way From Home

Profile of author Edwards Park

Review by  Justin Taylan  

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Last Updated
September 21, 2023

 

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Publisher's summary

• Examines the lives, legends and legacies of 11 of history's most famous pirates, including Blackbeard, Francis Drake, Captain Kidd, Captain Morgan, Grace O'Malley, Black Bart, Calico Jack, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Henry Every and Howell Davis.
• Explains how the myths and legends of pirates, like Blackbeard, created the instantly recognizable pirate stereotypes of today.
• Includes contemporary accounts of the pirates written by Captain Charles Johnson.

The people who have lived outside the boundaries of normal societies and refused to play by the rules have long fascinated the world, and nowhere is this more evident than the continuing interest in the pirates of centuries past. As the subjects of books, movies, and even theme park rides, people continue to let their imaginations go when it comes to pirates, with buried treasure, parrots, and walking the plank all ingrained in pop culture's perception of them.

While there is no question that the myths and legends surrounding history's most famous pirates are colorful, in some instances their actual lives made for even better stories. Before the golden age of piracy, men and women like Sir Francis Drake and Grace O'Malley straddled the line between pirate and privateer, with Drake being knighted for fighting the Spanish and O'Malley representing many things to the Irish, including queen, legend, pirate, and folk hero.

While Captain Morgan's ruthless piracy has actually been forgotten due to his association with the spiced rum company using his name, Captain William Kidd insisted he wasn't a pirate at all, and his entire reputation is based on the most notorious trial in the history of piracy.

"The golden age of piracy" generally refers to the era when history's most famous pirates roamed the seas of the West Indies from 1670-1720.

©2012 Charles River Editors (P)2015 Charles River Editors

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Publisher's summary

Tracer fire streaked through the sky like angry bolts of lightning…metal crunched and the helicopter shook. Smoke and flames began to fill the aircraft. They were going to crash....

Major Adams flew low over the treetops in his Huey, expertly dodging enemy ground fire until his helicopter was shot down. On Firebase 6, First Lieutenant Brian Thacker fought desperately to provide the besieged men the time they needed to retreat. They had to get into the helicopters before they were overrun by the North Vietnamese. Will the calls for artillery fire be enough to turn the tide of this battle? Will Lieutenant Thacker or Major Adams survive?

Join Lieutenant Dan Cory as he returns to Vietnam with his old unit, flying north from Lai Khe to Dak To. Undaunted Valor recounts the battle that took place on Firebases Five and Six in Dak To that resulted in two men receiving the Medal of Honor. Matt Jackson recounts some of the most intense helicopter and ground combat action of the Vietnam war from the eyes of a man who spent two combat tours there. His accounts reveal the dedication the helicopter crews had to each other and the grunts they supported. Awarded the Silver Star for his own actions in the battle, Matt brings a realism to this long-forgotten battle that continues to play out in the minds of those who fought it.

If you love heart-pounding action, visceral battles, and true tales of heroism, get your audiobook of Undaunted Valor today.

©2019 Gary J Bridges (P)2022 Gary J Bridges

[Vonrd]

I've read and enjoyed all of this series.

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Publisher's summary

When Vicksburg fell to Union forces under General Grant in July 1863, the balance turned against the Confederacy in the trans-Appalachian theater. The Federal success along the river opened the way for advances into central and eastern Tennessee, which culminated in the bloody battle of Chickamauga and then a struggle for Chattanooga. Chickamauga is usually counted as a Confederate victory, albeit a costly one. That battle - indeed the entire campaign - is marked by muddle and blunders occasionally relieved by strokes of brilliant generalship and high courage. The campaign ended significant Confederate presence in Tennessee and left the Union poised to advance upon Atlanta and the Confederacy on the brink of defeat in the western theater.

©1998 University of Nebraska Press (P)2017 Redwood Audiobooks

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Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood

The Rise and Fall of Byzantium, 955 A.D. to the First Crusade

Publisher's summary

In the second half of the tenth century, Byzantium embarked on a series of spectacular conquests. By the early eleventh century, the empire was the most powerful state in the Mediterranean. Yet this imperial project came to a crashing collapse fifty years later, when political disunity, fiscal mismanagement, and defeat at the hands of the Seljuks and the Normans brought an end to Byzantine hegemony. By 1081, Byzantium's very existence was threatened.

How did this transformation happen? Based on a close examination of the relevant sources, this history offers a new reconstruction of the key events and crucial reigns as well as a different model for understanding imperial politics and wars. In addition to providing a narrative of this critical period of Byzantine history, Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood offers new interpretations of topics relevant to the medieval era.

The narrative unfolds in three parts: the first covers the years 955-1025, a period of imperial conquest and consolidation of authority under the great emperor Basil "the Bulgar-Slayer."

The second (1025-1059) examines the dispersal of centralized authority in Constantinople and the emergence of new foreign enemies.

The last section chronicles the collapse of the empire, concluding with a look at the First Crusade and its consequences for Byzantine relations with the powers of Western Europe.

©2017 Oxford University Press (P)2024 Tantor

 

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About This Audible Original

From James Patterson, the world’s bestselling author, comes a new Audible Original thriller that will keep you guessing until the very end.

After the killing of a prominent mob lawyer, NYPD homicide detectives Jacob Jackson and Caitlin Grimes start receiving chilling, written "rules" for how to commit the perfect murder. "Rule number one for the perfect murder: Evidence is your enemy. Leave none behind."

Jackson (Reid Scott) and Grimes (Cobie Smulders) race to find the killer, setting them on a collision course with the city’s crime underbelly, and a perpetrator who seems happy to toy with them. "Rule number two. No crimes of passion. The perfect murder is always business, never pleasure."

As the cryptic notes keep coming and the body count grows, the detectives must untangle the mystery to protect more innocent lives from being lost—including their own.

Please note: This audio drama is for mature audiences only. It contains violence and strong language. Discretion is advised.

©2024 James Patterson Entertainment, Inc. (P)2024 Audible Originals, LLC

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Publisher's summary

The Civil War: A Narrative, Vol. 2 continues one of the most remarkable works of history ever fashioned. Focusing on the pivotal year of 1863, the second volume in Shelby Foote's masterful narrative history brings to life some of the most dramatic and important moments in the Civil War, including the Battle of Gettysburg and Grant's Vicksburg Campaign.

The word narrative is the key to this book's extraordinary incandescence and truth: The story is told entirely from the point of view of the people involved. One learns not only what was happening on all fronts but also how the author discovered it during his years of exhaustive research.

This is a must-listen for anyone interested in one of the bloodiest wars in America's history.

©2016 Shelby Foote (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

 

52+ Hours

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[Vonrd]

[Ludwig]

Recommended book this one, very well written so an easy read and enjoyable.  

Growing up in Austin and spending time on the battlefield at Shiloh I had a good understanding of the subject but was still pleased to learn more about it. Particularly did not know that when his body was moved 5 years after placement in New Orleans back to Ausin that the "pall bearers" were P.G.T. Beauregard, Braxton Bragg, John Bell Hood, Richard Taylor, and James Longstreet. Also that there was concern over an undue amount of attention from Confederate sympathizers.