Former newsman Alan Griggs pens stories of World War II bomber crews

Release Date: 9/10/2008. Expired: 10/10/2008

World War II bomber missions are widely considered to have been the most dangerous assignments for US servicemen in both the European and Asian theaters. The odds were heavily against each crew making a safe return and didn’t improve until Allied forces truly began to exert air dominance in the last two years of the war.

The often harrowing stories of bomber crew combat, some told for the very first time, are the subject of Flying Flak Alley: Personal Accounts of World War II Bomber Crew Combat, a new book edited by Alan L. Griggs, a veteran television journalist and writer and producer in The Renaissance Center’s Multimedia Department.

Griggs has assembled 125 first-person accounts of missions from interviews with 55 bomber veterans who flew all over Europe and vast stretches of the Pacific. Some of these men shared their stories for the first time, recalling memories that had been buried for more than 60 years.

“Flak Alley” refers to the heavy resistance most of the bomber missions encountered with flak from exploding anti-aircraft shells, turning the skies into airborne minefields through which pilots tried to steer huge B-17 Flying Fortresses, B-24 Liberators, B-29 Superfortresses and other bombers.

“Readers will learn about the courage it took to arise very early on many mornings, eat a hurried breakfast, go to the mission briefing, climb in the plane and often fly 10-12 hours while facing accurate anti-aircraft fire and dangerous enemy fighters flying around them,” Griggs says. “Many of these men were only 19 or 20 years old. Many did not return and many barely made it back to base in heavily damaged aircraft. Those who survived almost always told me they had no idea why they were spared, except it must have been only by the grace of God.”

Griggs, a former reporter and news director with WSMV Channel 4, became interested in the stories of bomber crews after a friend introduced him to a group of veterans who meet regularly in Nashville.

“I go to church with a gentleman, Bill Roberts, who is a WWII veteran, a gunner on a B-24 Liberator who flew 50 combat missions from a base in Italy to targets in Germany, Austria and other countries,” Griggs says. “I was talking with him one day when I noticed his tie clasp. It was in the shape of a B-24. He proudly explained about his WWII experience and that he belonged to a group of bomber crewmembers -- pilots, navigators, bombardiers and gunners -- who meet once a month in Nashville. He invited me to the next meeting. I went, listened to some of their stories, and told them their stories should be preserved for future generations.”

During the next six years, Griggs interviewed 55 bomber veterans, many of whom are members of the WWII Bomber Group of Middle Tennessee.

“Over that time I spent considerable hours with each man whose stories are in the book; 55 men who opened their homes to me and told their stories of combat, including the tragedy, courage and humor that only war can bring,” says Griggs. “This is my first book. I have always loved history and current events and I’ve been a writer all of my professional career but I was really compelled more than anything else to get these men’s stories so that future generations could learn firsthand the sacrifices made by those who kept our world free of tyranny.”

In addition to accomplishing his goal of keeping the stories of this vanishing generation alive, Griggs says Flying Flak Alley also helped him through one of the toughest times of his life after the sudden death of his son Lee in 2005.

“I really think the book project helped to keep my sanity when my son died. I put it aside for a year after Lee’s death because I just didn’t feel like working on it,” Griggs says. “But soon I had the urge to finish it as a tribute to the men and to Lee, who was very proud of my book plans.”

Flying Flak Alley is dedicated to Lee Griggs.

A native of Newnan, Ga., Griggs received his Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communications from the University of Georgia and earned a Master’s degree in Organizational Communications from Western Kentucky University.

During a 20-plus-year career in television news, he worked as a reporter and anchor at WAPI in Birmingham, an investigative reporter at WBZ in Boston and came to Middle Tennessee as a reporter for WSMV and worked his way up to news director for his last nine years, overseeing a newsroom that was recognized as one of the strongest in any market in the country.

Griggs has received most of broadcast journalism’s top awards including three Peabody Awards (the broadcast equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize), a Dupont-Columbia citation for a documentary on the Ku Klux Klan, two National Headliner awards, the George Polk award, the Edward R. Murrow award for broadcast excellence, several Emmys and the Robert F. Kennedy award for a year-long effort on race relations.

In his career he also has served as an adjunct professor of communications at the University of Tennessee and Western Kentucky University, published academic research and business articles and has served as president of the University of Georgia journalism advisory board. He has worked as the communications director for a U.S. Senate campaign, marketing director for Film House, Inc., and director of Media Strategy for United Methodist Communications.

Griggs returned to his television roots in 2001 as a producer, writer and reporter for Tennessee’s Wild Side, The Renaissance Center’s award-winning outdoor adventure television series, and is co-host of the show’s Internet spin-off, Tennessee’s Wild Side Weekly (www.wildsideweekly.com).

Flying Flak Alley is published by McFarland Publishers and is available in The Virtually Unlimited Bookstore at The Renaissance Center, on Amazon.com and other Internet book sites. Griggs has spoken to several civic organizations about the book and in August appeared on WNPT’s A Word on Words, hosted by John Seigenthaler.

Griggs and his wife Sandra live in Nashville and have two children, Elizabeth and William.

For more information or for inquiries on scheduling a program about Flying Flak Alley, contact Griggs at The Renaissance Center at (615) 740-5540 or alan.griggs@rcenter.org.

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