Into the Inferno

The Story of a B-17 Gunner Over Nazi-occupied Europe

Bill Ibelle

• Publisher: Casemate
• Year: 2025
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781636245591
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: History

"Into the Inferno is more than just another war story. It's an intriguing tale of best friends—one fighting at 25, 000 feet above German flak guns and the other in the steaming jungles of the Pacific—and of the unforgettable girl they left behind. A page turner to the very end." — Travis L. Ayres, author of The Bomber Boys The temperature was 40 degrees below zero when fighter planes screamed out of the clouds, puncturing the fuselage with a spray of machinegun fire and sending the bomber beside them into a death spin. This was followed by intense flak, as a hundred cannons on the ground tried to blow them out of the sky. When they finally made it back to the base, another enemy awaited them: homesickness, crushing boredom, relentless cold, and more mud than they could imagine. Bert Ibelle was a 19-year-old freshman at Dartmouth College when he enlisted in the Army Air Corps to fly dozens of bomber missions over Nazi-occupied Europe and win the Purple Heart. His buddy, Fran Brighenti, served as an infantry marksman on the opposite side of the globe, slogging through the steaming jungles of the Philippine and the fiery hell of Okinawa. Their wars couldn't have been more different, nor could their approach to life. While the ever-exuberant Fran was a ladies man, Bert only had eyes for "Red, " the girl back home who was in love with another young man. This is their story—one that combines terror, humor, friendship, and a son's search for his elusive father.

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Prologue
• Note to the Reader
• 1 The Kingdom of Loneliness
• 2 1943: Dear Folks
• 3 Distance
• 4 Love is Like a Rocket
• 5 1944: “Screwed, Blewed, and Tattoed”
• 6 Deployed
• 7 “We’re Not on Vacation Here”
• 8 The Boy on the Porch
• 9 “I’m Having the Time of My Life”
• 10 “It Was Exotic in the Extreme”
• 11 “And my Mother Was Worried About the Germans”
• 12 Into the Inferno
• 13 “Hit ’em Good Kid”
• 14 Too Close for Comfort
• 15 The Glass Ball
• 16 Anatomy of a Mission
• 17 The Little Box of Horrors
• 18 The Angels Sing
• 19 The Isolation Room
• 20 Russian Roulette
• 21 “We Were Tired Beyond Tears”
• 22 A Narrow Escape
• 23 April 1945: The Final Fury
• 24 Dear Mom Ibelle
• 25 Coming Home
• 26 “Grazie di Cuore”
• 27 Journey’s End
• Appendix I: Mission List
• Appendix II: The Crew of the “Mr. Bones”