Though primarily known for his 1943 book God Is My Co-Pilot, Colonel Robert Lee Scott, Jr., was the author of some twelve other works, the central themes of which were his experience as an Army Air Force fighter pilot (which included command of the 23rd Fighter Group), and, military aviation and flying “in general”.
Scott’s second book, Damned to Glory, was published by Blue Ribbon Books in 1943. Probably inspired by a central aspect of his experiences in China – flying the Curtiss Warhawk fighter plane – the book is a literary paean to the P-40: The aircraft is presented as a symbol and embodiment of American technology, industry, and democracy, through accounts of the plane’s use by the air forces of the United States and its Allies (Royal Air Force, South African Air Force, and the Soviet Air Force). The book’s chapters are thematically arranged, each covering use of the Warhawk in a specific theater of war, or, by a specific military air force, with some of the chapters (you’ll see in three following posts) being introduced by a brief poem, likely of Scott’s authorship.
Strikingly, given that the book was published in the midst of WW II, the dust jacket clearly – and I believe intentionally – shows a damaged P-40, its pilot dead or mortally wounded, as the aircraft enters an uncontrolled dive while under the guise of other pilots. Perhaps this depiction fits the book’s very title: Damned – to Glory. Perhaps – this will remain conjecture – Colonel Scott and Blue Ribbon Books wanted to visually convey the message that despite the (by then) reasonable confidence in an eventual Allied victory, that victory would not arrive without sacrifice and cost.
Particularly notable are Lloyd Howe’s interior illustrations. One per chapter, reproduced in black and white, perhaps the original works were done in water colors, or, were pencil and / or charcoal sketches.
While these illustrations are not accurate in terms of dimensions and proportions of aircraft (either Allied or Axis), they solidly convey a sense of action and location, and are stylistically similar to the “box art” of plastic model kits – ahhh, remember Airfix, Aurora, Monogram (my favorite), and Revell? – of the 1950s through the 60s.
It’d been my intention to present scans of each image in Damned to Glory through a succession of posts, but – (!) – my copy of the book is too fragile to scan each of these illustrations without damaging the spine. So, while only three interior images are presented in the following posts, these images are representative of Lloyd Howe’s artistic style. Each image is accompanied by text from its relevant chapter.
Click ahead, and enjoy.
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A P-40 “sharkmouth” emblem is embosed upon the front cover…
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…while here is Scott’s introduction…
Ghost Ship
WHILE the thunder of her sixteen hundred horses shook the earth, she stood quivering with anticipation, her lines as graceful as those of any living thing. She was poised for action. The pilot who caressed her controls could feel under his hand the throbbing pulse of her life as the mighty Allison in her vitals roared its defiance. From the pointed nose of the spinner, back along her streamlined breast, she was a thing of beauty. Small as she looked to the casual observer, the pilot knew that there was tremendous power enclosed within her delicate skin.
Man had labored for years over drafting-boards to work out her design, that she might be ready when war should come to threaten his way of life. Man had formed with loving care the engine which was her heart, the wings which were her means of sustentation, the driving prop which was her means of motion through space. Then man, now become her creator, had trained himself again as a specialist, that he might become her pilot and thus become her very soul.
She drank her food from great tanks of high octane gasoline which had the potentiality of an explosive. And within her slender wings, that seemed hardly large enough to support her weight, were enclosed six fifty-caliber guns, which, when discharged at their rated normal of over six thousand rounds per minute, gave her the fire-power of one entire infantry battalion. Underneath these slender wings she could also carry nearly a ton of deadly bombs, which could blast a capital ship from the seas or deliver a city to destruction. From her twelve beautifully flared nostrils, she exhaled thousands of staccato explosions per minute, and her breath, hot with the passion of battle, pushed her to greater speed by the jet effect produced. When master pilots rode her into combat at high speed, the tips of her laminar-flow wings would sweat a gauze-like vapor which became a frozen mist behind this rocketing projectile.
Her function in life, the prime reason for her existence, was to carry her guns into range of a hostile bomber, hurtle it from the skies, and by this same method destroy all who came out to oppose her own bombers. It was her destiny to die, if need be, in gallant battle, that her bomber convoy might go on with its terrible cargo of death to wreck the industry of the enemy. In case she must carry the bombs herself, after their delivery she must become a fighter again, ready to use her guns and sting the enemy with death.
Her every feature had a strangely feminine beauty, an arrogant grace like that of some high-born vestal who, by her very place in life, knows her own destiny. Standing there atremble, she seemed like some aristocratic priestess who, though selected’ to die, would know how to make her sacrifice worth while.
She was an American fighter plane, the ten thousandth of her line. Constructed from elements which had come from every part of the globe, she was the creation of American minds, of skillful American hands – more than that you could not ask. Pilots called her “Warhawk,” and the Army charts spoke of her as P-40. Friends called her tender things that were sacred to them; her enemies, Jap and Hun, called her terrible names that meant tough, strong, fast, wicked and dirty. The pilot who flew her, whether he was an American, a Russian, a South African, or any other of the Allied Nations – for they all flew her – became her animating spirit.
These pilots, and they are legion, have fought the enemy with her on every front in this war. They are her judges; throughout this story they will bear witness that those ten thousand P-40s have fought a glorious fight. The materials which made her were gathered from the many countries of the earth, and now, on battle scenes around the world, they have been returned as debris and the rusting dust of war. Dust shall return to dust. But by actual statistics, for every one of these Warhawks destroyed in battle, thirteen and one-half enemy planes have paid the penalty. With no disparagement of other American planes, this gallant, global ship must be considered one of the greatest American fighter planes. She was in production when the trial of war came and other fighter ships were merely on the plotting boards. Her test was made in battle.
Now when faster and higher-climbing fighters are taking over, she merely salutes them, as they go climbing into the very heavens beyond the stratosphere with the knowledge she helped to teach them. If she were human, which she very nearly is, she would have tremendous stories to tell of her fighting days and of her continuing battles, for P-40’s are still roaming the skies of nearly every battlefront.
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…while the rear dust jacket has an excellent image of Colonel Scott seated in a P-40N.
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Here’s a better view of Scott’s portrait. (Notice the absence of a gunsight.)
