“Life,” writes Joseph W. Rutter, “was all fun and games with very 
expensive toys during those bright June days in 1944.” Rutter was 
a pilot in the Army Air Force, and the expensive toys were 
airplanes—A-20s, nicknamed “the Havoc” for the damage they 
inflicted. He had just completed replacement crew training at 
Charlotte, North Carolina. Shortly thereafter he was flying with the 
312th Bomb Group from Hollandia, New Guinea, over Japanese 
targets and across “unexplored” areas, and life became more 
serious.

    Wreaking Havoc tells the story of Rutter and his friends at a time 
when the horrors of war were matched by the energy and 
enthusiasm of youth. In innocent and understated tones, Rutter 
relates hijinks and daredevilry, his training stateside, his first 
mission, large-scale raids on the Philippines and Formosa, routine 
low-level attacks on Japanese positions, crashes, mishaps, and the 
deaths of friends. With a wonderful eye for detail, Rutter gives the 
reader a glimpse into not only the air war in the Pacific but also the 
culture of the 1940s and the minds of the young men who found 
themselves far from home on the front lines.

    In Rutter’s story of war, the A-20 is as much a protagonist as the 
author. If the aircraft emerges as a pilot’s plane—a joy to fly—it 
could also be a temperamental machine whose landing gear might 
collapse, whose hydraulic system might fail, and whose controls 
might suddenly malfunction. Rutter and the men who crewed the 
planes are quiet heroes whose approach to war combines the 
nonchalance of youth and the seriousness of men who have come 
close enough to death to take life seriously.

    From the pages of his memoir, Rutter speaks to those interested 
in aviation, World War II, and the coming of age of a young man.

_________________________________________________________

JOSEPH W. RUTTER served with the 312th Bomb Group in the 
Southwest Pacific and completed sixty-three missions over New 
Guinea and the Philippines. After a career in the insurance industry, 
he retired to Marietta, Ohio.


Number Ninety-one: Texas A&M University Military History Series


What people are saying about this book

“Over 140 million Americans lived through World War II but only a
tiny percentage of them were sent to the front lines. The story of one
such veteran is recounted in Wreaking Havoc. Lieutenant Rutter’s
story is the real stuff of history. . . . the story of every man that
speaks in a modest yet powerful way about war, death, and heroism.”
—John H. White, Jr., Miami University, Oxford, Ohio

“Joseph Rutter has given a riveting account of his coming-of-age
piloting a Douglas A-20 light bomber in the South Pacific during World
War Two. Veterans will empathize with his descriptions of the ups and
downs of military life between missions when a twenty-year-old is far
from home in wartime.”—Gifford B. Doxsee, Ohio University, Athens

“. . . a fascinating tale, well written, and one which ought to catch 
the recently renewed interest in WW II operations.”—I. B. Holley, Jr.,
Duke University