This is an IHeart podcast.

And we continue here with our American stories.

And up next, Greg Hangler has an unlikely World War II story about George McGovern,

the liberal anti-war Democratic presidential candidate from South Dakota,

who was soundly defeated by President Nixon in the 1972 election.

Stephen Ambrose is one of America's leading biographers in his story. President Nixon in the 1972 election.

Stephen Ambrose is one of America's leading biographers and historians.

Ambrose's works have inspired Americans to regard its war veterans with newfound reverence.

His bestsellers chronicle our nation's critical battles and achievements, from his seminal war works

D-Day and Band of Brothers, to undaunted courage, and nothing like it in the world,

the men who built the Transcontinental Railroad. Stephen Ambrose passed in 2002, but his epic

storytelling accounts can now be heard here at Our American

Stories, thanks to the permission from those who run his estate. Here's Stephen Ambrose to tell us a short

story from his book, The Wild Blue, the men and boys who flew the B-24s over Germany.

My next book is a story of the B-24 in the Second World War.

And it's not exclusively about, it's about squadron and and then about the bomb group

But one of the members of the squadron was George McGovern who was a pilot of a B-24 35 missions got the distinguished flying cross

He flew bombers in the second world war and he did and

How do you open a story? I opened with George. He had come back from a

raid over Vienna. He was all shot up with shrapnel and everything and the plane just barely

limping along and there's a good story in itself. And the crew called up to him, Lieutenant,

we got a bomb stuck in the bomb bay, half in and half out.

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