The Wrong Stuff

The Adventures and Misadventures of an 8th Air Force Aviator

Truman Smith

Narrated by James Robert Killavey

Available from Audible

Book published by University of Oklahoma Press

Between April and July 1944, Truman Smith Flew thirty-five bombing missions over France and Germany. He was only twenty years old. Although barely adults, Smith and his peers worried about cramming a lifetime’s worth of experience into every free night, each knowing he probably would not survive the next bombing mission. Written with blunt honesty, wry humor, and insight, The Wrong Stuff is Smith’s gripping memoir of that time. In a new preface, the author comments with equal honesty and humor on the impact this book has had on his life.

Truman Smith is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force and a member of the Distinguished Flying Cross Society. In 1958 he founded the Air Force Radio-TV network, which reached Europe, North Africa, and the Near East.

REVIEWS:

“Shelves in bookstores are filled with memoirs from the Second World War. Even so, few capture as vividly the danger, excitement, and stress of air combat as does Truman Smith’s The Wrong Stuff.”

—Mark K. Wells, USAF Academy

“The book, which includes capers, raw emotion and animated fighting action, will delight casual readers and war-buffs alike.”

— Norman Transcript

“If you thought gallantry and valor were the only stuff war is made of, think again. Truman Smiths The Wrong Stuff will let you know right away that the Hollywood version of war is just that: the stuff of good movies. He makes one statement which is not understood by anyone who has not served in combat: ‘In order to out-bad the bad guys, you’ve got to be badder than they are.’”

—Tulsa World

“Writing bluntly and sometime profanely, Smith, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, talks honestly about his experiences, ventures that happened also to thousands of other Air Force veterans…If nothing else, the book proves that the nation’s greatest resources are its young people, ready and willing to serve their country.”

—St. Joseph (MO.) News-Press