100 Year Old Navy Cross hero "Dusty" Kleiss, Battle of Midway

https://www.facebook.com/NeverCallMeAHero/

I'm doing something I have not done before as part of this WW2 Fallen project.

I am recommending a book that was written by World War 2 hero Norman Jack "Dusty" Kleiss. The name of the book is Never Call Me A Hero: A Legendary American Dive-Bomber Pilot Remembers the Battle of Midway.

The upcoming $75 million budgeted movie Midway is going to bring some extra attention to the most important naval battle of World War 2. I have read that the movie will focus on Enterprise dive-bomber pilot Dick Best. Dusty Kleiss was in the same squadron as Lt. Best so he participated in the same morning attacks on the Japanese carriers Akagi and Kaga and the afternoon attack on Hiryu. In fact Dusty Kleiss was the only pilot to score hits on three different Japanese ships - Kaga, Hiryu, and the cruiser Mikuma the next day.

Kleiss's first hand account of his participation in the Battle of Midway is the highlight of his book. For years people had asked him to write of the important role he played, but he always declined. He felt he was just doing his job, hence "Never call me a hero" and there was nothing he could write about. He did not change his mind until he was ninety-nine years old. By that time he was the last living dive-bomber pilot who fought in the battle. He reason to write the book was "to honor my friends who gave their lives so that our nation could go on."

The book was published in 2016 and Dusty died shortly there after at age 100. What better place to talk about a book written by a 100 year old WW2 hero than in a project that honors the fallen who never reached age 100?

I enjoy reading the memoirs of the ordinary men who left home and family to fight for America in World War 2. I think this book is one of the best. I discovered it quite by accident when I was scanning my SCRIBD account for a book to listen too. I am glad I found it.

I hope the Midway movie turns out to be good. I can guarantee you that Never Call Me a Hero is good.

If you want to listen the the audio version of the book, you can find it on SCRIBD. If you don't have a SCRIBD membership, send me a private Facebook message or email ww2fallen100@gmail.com and I can get you two months for free as a referral.

SCRIBD is my favorite way to read books. It has a library of more than a million titles available for the monthly $8.99 subscription. I especially like the hundreds of WW2 era books that I can access. I find many of the details I include in my profiles of the fallen by using SCRIBD.