While many might consider Wichita’s role in aviation history through the recent lens of the numerous Citations, Learjets, King Airs, and other aircraft produced by its manufacturers, the city has carried the sobriquet of Air Capital of the World since the late 1920s.

During World War II, Boeing’s Wichita factory churned out more than 1,600 B-29 Superfortress bombers, and the story of how one of them returned as an abandoned wreck and was restored to become only the second of its type still airworthy is told by Wichita-based Dave Franson, a veteran aviation industry publicist.

Every story requires a protagonist, and in Franson’s new book, Rescuing DOC, that is Cleveland native Tony Mazzolini, who served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War as a flight engineer, having enlisted fresh out of high school.

The first half of the book is relayed to the author as first-person narrative and describes how Mazzolini got the idea to rescue a B-29, his quest to locate a viable candidate for restoration, and the eventual hoops he was forced to jump through to gain title to the four-engine bomber that had lain forgotten at the China Lake weapon test range in the California desert for more than four decades.

The full book review may be found on AINOnline here. The book may be purchased here.