A new review of Fogg in the Cockpit featured on World War II Database.
Fogg in the Cockpit
Author: Richard Fogg and Janet Fogg
ISBN: 978-1-61200-004-6
ISBN: 978-1-61200-004-6
Reviewer: C. Peter Chen
Review Date: 11 May 2012
Review Date: 11 May 2012
Full Title: Fogg in the Cockpit: Howard Fogg-Master
Railroad Artist, World War II Fighter Pilot
When Howard Fogg graduated from an Ivy League college in
1938 and then an art school in 1939, he, with professional interest in art and
a hobby in locomotives, probably did not think of himself as a warrior even
though war had already broken out in Asia and
the European tensions escalated. Drafted into the military in 1941, he ended up
becoming a fighter pilot flying P-47 Thunderbolt and later P-51 Mustang
fighters. Fogg in the Cockpit, posthumously published in 2011, was a
collection of Fogg's war time diary entries that gave the readers a glimpse
into the life of an American pilot in the European theater of war, penned by
this Renaissance Man of sorts whose mind was geared toward the arts as much as
tuned to identifying friend or foe in a dogfight.
What I thought was valuable, if a bit inconsequential, was
the very fact that Fogg did not always focus on the war. He did mention how
impressed he was when he first flew a P-51 Mustang fighter and how tough it was
to notice when one of his comrades failed to return to the airfield after a
mission, but it was the little things that gave me an insight, trivial things
that sometimes others often did not bother to note. The diarist dutifully noted
when the weather was poor, which kept his squadron on the ground, wasting time
presenting each other with mock medals or simply chatting the boredom away.
While he talked about the nerve wracking experiences of flying through
anti-aircraft bursts, he spent an equal amount of time talking about the movies
he had seen, restaurants he had visited, and the different models of trains he
had traveled aboard and painted. Some of the facts were, admittedly, mundane
and mattered little in the grand scheme of things, but nevertheless, this book
provided a personal perspective on a war that was often written so facelessly.
Throughout the book, editors Richard Fogg and Janet Fogg,
the diarist's children, inserted various elements to enhance the readers'
experience. I had particularly enjoyed the generous additions of period
photographs, many of which seemed to be coming from the archives of the Fogg
family and various veterans' associations, thus infrequently seen by outsiders
like myself. At the end of certain entries, the editors had inserted major
events of the European War on those particular days; while the intention of
providing the larger picture was clear, I felt that these facts failed to plug
Howard Fogg into the overall landscape of the war, thus these additions formed
a distraction from the diary entries, especially that most of the them the
world events did not seem to factor into the mindset of the diarist. Finally,
for those who appreciate locomotive art and perhaps knew Fogg as a professional
artist, a small collection of paintings printed in color in the final pages of
the book might be of interest.
Memoirs and diaries, by definition, could not be considered
works of history, but books such as Fogg in the Cockpit contained
valuable insight on the reactions and thoughts of individuals who lived through
and experienced the war, providing us the little pieces of hints that,
collectively, told of how and why history was shaped.
