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The book is due out in May. Go to fogginthe
cockpit.blospot.com for updates on the exact publication date and to see some of Howard Fogg`s railroad art.
One day when Howard Fogg was going through classroom instruction to become a fighter pilot during World War II, an instructor who didn`t know the trainees gave a lesson about meteorology.
He warned that one of the greatest hazards of flying was fog in the cockpit, which prompted an immediate outburst of laughter by everyone in the class.
Puzzled by the response, the instructor asked what was so funny and it wasn`t until someone pointed out that one of the pilots in the class was named Fogg that he understood why everyone had cracked up.
So begins a new book called "Fogg in the Cockpit" written by husband and wife team Richard Fogg and Janet Fogg, who live northeast of Niwot. It is based on the wartime diary Capt. Howard Fogg kept while he served with the 359th Fighter Group for nearly a year in 1943 and 1944. Capt. Fogg was Richard`s father.
The book also touches on Boulder resident Capt. Fogg`s artistic talent, which later in life brought him fame as a railroad artist. Some experts say he was the world`s best painter of trains.
His fighter group was stationed at East Wretham Airfield, northeast of London, and flew missions over France and Germany. The fighter planes, called "the little friends" by American fliers, were responsible for keeping German fighters away from the much slower American bombers, known as "the heavies."
Capt. Fogg flew 76 combat missions before rotating back to the United States and was awarded the Air Medal with three clusters and the Distinguished Flying Cross with one cluster.
"His group`s philosophy was to stay with the bombers and protect them," Richard said. "He never shot down a plane, and, as far as I can tell, he was
When not escorting bombers, the fighter pilots provided ground support by strafing trains and truck convoys, but Fogg was careful about whom he shot, Richard said.
On one mission over France, he buzzed a train to warn the French crew, Richard said.
"They got off and he returned and shot up the train. The crew waved at him as he flew away," he said. "It`s ironic that one of things he had to do in the war was shoot up trains, but after the war he developed beautiful paintings of them."
Richard said his father was lucky because he was never injured although half of the pilots in his original group were shot down or killed.
"He did develop sinus problems later in life, probably from breathing oxygen and the cold air," Janet said. "He had heat in the cockpit, but it still got very cold inside."
The fighter planes could go as high as 35,000 feet, but most flights were done between 15,000 and 25,000 feet, which was the normal flying altitude for the bombers, she said.
He flew the P-47 Thunderbolt and later the faster P-51 Mustang, which had a greater range.
"When the P-51s came along, they could basically go anywhere in Germany," Richard said. "Supposedly, Hermann Goering, when he first saw P-51s over Berlin, knew the war was over."
Goering was the commander-in-chief of Germany`s air force.
The book supplements Fogg`s diary with excerpts from the fighter group`s chaplain`s report and the group`s historian`s documents, providing three points of view about the men`s daily activities.
Although the pilots sometimes flew two missions a day, especially around D-Day, there was plenty of downtime, too.
"They killed time playing Ping-Pong, darts, baseball and pool, and by reading," Janet said.
She and Richard began considering writing a book after his mother gave him the diary when Capt. Fogg died in 1996.
"I didn`t know it existed and it was quite a surprise when she produced it," Richard said.
Once he and Janet began working on the book, they relied on her expertise as an author -- she published a novel called "Soliloquy" in 2009 and collaborated with other writers on screenplays, narrative nonfiction and fiction -- and his technical knowledge to produce the manuscript.
"In nonfiction, you`re dealing with facts and we tried to get them right," Richard said. "I felt a sense of responsibility and have a newfound respect for historians."
Janet echoed that thought.
"I felt the same sense of responsibility. One hundred and twenty-one pilots were lost in his group, and it was an honor to remember those people."
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