OTTUMWA — Think of a story where “Band of Brothers” meets “Flyboys” and you might have the flavor of a new book about World War II.

That’s what John Wurm at Quayside Publishing Group in Minneapolis has to say about “Hell Hawks! The Untold Story of the American Flyers Who Savaged Hitler’s Wehrmach.”

There’s a local connection in this story.

“One of the pilots featured in the book is Ottumwa resident Dick R. Schlegel,” said Wurm. “‘Hell Hawks!’ tells the story of a group of pilots, most barely in their 20s, who took it to Hitler’s air and ground forces during WWII.”

Like other 365th pilots whose stories are told in the book, Schlegel met the authors, Robert Dorr and Thomas Jones, at a 365th Fighter Group reunion two years ago.

“Somebody notified us through the newsletter these guys were putting together a book about our fighter group,” said Schlegel, a retired attorney and judge living in Ottumwa. “They wanted to know about specific missions.”

For him, the one that stood out took place in April of 1945.

“We were out on an armed reconnaissance, where you find a target and work on it, tear it up,” Schlegel said. “We attacked [an] ammunition dump on the Elbe River.”

Schlegel was the wing man for the pilot who took command of the 12 plane squadron, all P-47 Thunderbolts. That mission commander was designated White Leader.

“White Leader set up a pattern over the ammunition dump [so we could begin] strafing,” Schlegel said.

With machine guns blazing, the lead pilot blew up a storage shed, which exploded. Schlegel, behind him, then opened up with his .50-caliber machine guns, blowing up another ammunition shed. They circled around, came back and did it again, with two more piles of ordinance exploding.

A fellow pilot flying cover high above said the explosion was so bad, it tore the canopy off his aircraft. White Leader’s plane was badly damaged by the blast, and he just turned his plane toward their base, 200 miles away.

Schlegel decided because of the situation he would fly cover for the damaged aircraft. When his radio crackled to life, Schlegel sensed trouble.

“He did not sound well,” he said.

Five minutes from home, the damaged plane suddenly dumped out all its oil, and the pilot said he was going to have to bail out. Moments later, the plane rolled upside down, then dove nearly straight into the ground. The pilot had never ejected.