For This Marvelous Country is the inspiring true story of a B-17 Flying Fortress combat pilot in the 92nd Bomb Group, 8th USAAF, in Europe during WWII. Bill, Captain William B. Rose, recounts his first twenty-five combat missions, including the epic air raids on Schweinfurt and Brunswick. In 1943 Marg wrote a letter to Bill, the pilot of her brother’s crew. The letters they shared were “friendly, but not familiar”; a reflection of Bill’s military training. Bill returns to Europe in 1944 for a second combat tour in the B-17. At the end of the war in 1945, Bill and Marg, two strangers who shared the cares and concerns of wartime through correspondence, found themselves in a quandary - “Where do we go from here?”

Bill accomplished a monumental task by completing two combat tours as a B-17 bomber pilot in Europe during WWII. This book pays homage to him and to all who served and are presently serving. It will inspire future generations to remember our veterans and to discover the patriotic fervor exemplified by the WWII generation.

Excerpt - Chapter Three; Bovingdon was a Combat Crew Replacement Centre. We were instructed for two weeks by combat veterans, on what to expect and how to evade if we were fortunate enough to land on the continent. We learned how to ditch the B-17 and the action of the Air Sea Rescue.

Upon completion of our training, we were assigned to the 92nd Bomb Group at Podington.

Our group was assigned to the 326th Bomb Squadron. I remember the squadron commander telling me that if I could get by the first seven missions, I would have a chance of completing my tour of twenty-five missions.
I asked him how many missions he had been on. “Five”, he replied. He went down on his next mission.