True Aviation Picture-Stories #6

On November 30, 1942, a group of Marine dive bomber pilots receives orders to intercept a Japanese fleet headed toward Guadalcanal and launches an attack through heavy enemy fire and swarms of zeros. After successfully hitting their targets and regrouping, the pilots face an even greater challenge on the return flight—navigating through dense overcast with fuel running low, a failing hand pump, and no radio contact with their squadron. Flying blind on instruments and guided only by compass and glimpses through the clouds, the pilot must rely on skill and determination to find his way back to the airfield before his tanks run completely empty.

Richard Hillary was an Oxford student and gifted athlete who learned to fly with the university air squadron—and when war with Germany erupted, he was ready to serve. After earning his RAF commission and joining Squadron 603 as a fighter pilot, Hillary scored victories in combat, but a fateful September 1940 mission saw his Spitfire engulfed in flames when his cockpit hood jammed, leaving him severely burned and temporarily blinded after bailing into the English Channel. With the aid of devoted medical staff and pioneering plastic surgery, Hillary rebuilt himself for duty—and returned to the fight against the enemy.

A young Brazilian scientist named Alberto Santos-Dumont becomes fascinated with flight and sets out to prove that humans can navigate the air in motorized machines. Starting with bold experiments in steerable balloons and graduating to heavier-than-air craft, he pursues increasingly ambitious challenges—including a daring attempt at the Deutsch Prize around the Eiffel Tower—while risking his life to advance aviation for all mankind. This biographical account follows his journey from plantation-bred tinkerer to pioneering aviator who forever changed what the world thought possible.

Rear Gunner Joe Hartman's B-17 is torn apart during a suicide attack by an enemy pilot over the Solomon Islands, leaving him pinned in the tail section and plummeting 17,000 feet through the air. With his parachute strapped across his chest and consciousness fading in and out, Hartman must rely on instinct and sheer luck to survive his catastrophic fall and reach solid ground.

Ralph Christie trades the unpredictable skies of Canadian bush flying for combat duty in the Royal Canadian Air Force, where his unconventional skills prove invaluable. When his bomber is crippled during a dangerous low-level attack on a Nazi convoy, Christie draws on his bush-flying experience to navigate home without instruments or navigator, setting up one of the most harrowing returns of his service. This true account follows a pilot whose daring and resourcefulness under fire earned him recognition for extraordinary bravery in the skies over Europe.