Waukon native Keith Mason has his World War II memoirs published

The University of Missouri Press has just published Keith Mason’s World War II memoir: My War In Italy: On the Ground and in Flight with the 15th Air Force. In 2009, Mason had self-published a limited number of copies which were originally titled Nothing to Fear: Recollections of a World War II Bomber Pilot. The book can be ordered online through various booksellers and can also be obtained through the University of Missouri Press.

Six weeks before Pearl Harbor, Waukon native Keith Mason received a $150 uniform allowance, a pair of silver wings, and his first assignment as a flight instructor: Randolph Field, Teas. Two years later, he was Squadron Officer in the 460th Bomb Group, 15th Air Force in Spinazzola, Italy - flying the harrowing combat missions he dreamed of as a boy.

As a memoir of one man’s war years, Mason provides insight on the inner workings of serving as an airman during World War II: facing stultifying boredom, stupefying incompetence, paralyzing fear and stunning success. Details of how crews were selected for combat missions, the necessity to break up crews, and of select missions in which Mason was a participant are important additions to the history and literature of this often neglected theater.

Mason’s journey from small-town Iowa kid to squadron operations officer in Italy goes beyond romantic images of fighter pilots and the tragic chaos of war. It is the history of upward mobility in Depression-World War II-era America. His stories are a blend of the comical, technical and philosophical.

Dennis Okerstrom, author of Project 9: The Birth of Air Commandos in World War II, writes that Mason’s memoir is “a highly readable account of one young man’s desire to fly written with the honest and authentic voice of someone who entered the war as an  idealistic youth and came out the other side profoundly changed.”

Mason was born in Waukon in 1920 and has been a life-long resident here. Together with his late wife, Jean Ann, for whom he named his two B-24 Bombers, he raised five children. He has six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. During World War II, Mason completed 48 missions before returning to the United States. He is a retired vocational auto mechanics instructor who organized his courses utilizing principles and techniques he developed as a flight instructor during the war.