Condition: Like New. Packed in a BOX with cardboard backing and padding. (See Photos)! Ships from California. Pages: not written on, clean, bright, odor free. Cover: clean, bright, near fine edges. Ships same or next day (weekdays and Saturdays)! ABOUT THIS: The title Gold Star Aces refers to a tradition that dates back to the First World War whereby families, schools, churches and businesses displayed in their windows, a red bordered white banner adorned with a gold star for every family member or associate who died while in service of the USA during wartime. A typical Gold Star Banner is pictured on the book's back cover. Gold Star Aces is published in two volumes. Volume I profiles fifty four US Army Air Forces aces who were killed or missing overseas between America's entry into WWII and the end of June 1944. Volume II covers the remaining sixty aces who lost their lives between July 1944 and VJ-Day. The original criteria used to select the pilots for this book was simply that they scored five aerial victories and were killed overseas. Through the process of writing Gold Star Aces the criteria has been modified slightly to include pilots who scored more than four aerial victories. This means that pilots who shot down four and shared the destruction of the fifth with another pilot or pilots are included. To encourage pilots to undertake the dangerous task of strafing heavily defended airfields, the Eighth Air Force in England awarded credits to pilots for enemy aircraft destroyed on the ground. After the war these credits were disallowed. 8th Air Force pilots who had at least four aerial victories and one ground victory have therefore been included. Another exception was made to include the top scoring American ace of all time, Major Richard I. Bong who was killed in a stateside crash before the war ended. Throughout these two volumes I have tried to imagine myself in the place of each pilot during his last moments. In some cases pilots were killed instantly from direct hits from an