American Hero: The True Story of Tommy Hitchcock Sports Star, War Hero, and Champion of the War-Winning P-51 Mustang

2016 | Biography

Jazz Age Hero intertwines the private lives of Tommy Hitchcock, an enormously wealthy socialite, and such notables as Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Averell Harriman, Ambassador to England Gil Winant, FDR, and General Hap Arnold, commander of the U.S. Army Air Forces during WWII. Tommy also flew for the Lafayette Escadrille during the Great War, getting shot down by the Germans and then escaping to Switzerland. A true hero, during WWII he reenlisted and successfully cajoled the Army Air Forces into adopting the P-51 as a high-altitude fighter escort, thereby saving the lives of tens of thousands of U.S. airmen conducting daylight bombing raids over Germany. Fitzgerald based two characters in his novels on Tommy: Tom Buchanan (Daisy's husband) in The Great Gatsby and Tommy Barban in Tender Is the Night.

Nelson W Aldrich (Author)