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

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.

Author: Nelson W. Aldrich
Publisher: Lyons Press
Published: 09/22/2016
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.60lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.20w x 1.30d
ISBN: 9781493022878

About the Author
Nelson W. Aldrich, Jr. is a writer and editor who currently lives in Boston. He was for a time the Paris editor of The Paris Review, and has published articles on a variety of subjects including art, politics, and education in magazines such as Vogue and Harper's. He is the author of the modern classic, Old Money. He is a great-grandson of Nelson W. Aldrich, who was instrumental in founding the Federal Reserve banking system in the United States. Coincidentally, Nelson, Jr. attended the same prep school and college as Tommy Hitchcock, although much later: St. Paul's School and Harvard College.