The Ones Who Got Away
Mighty Eighth Airmen on the Run in Occupied Europe
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- 21,99 €
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- 21,99 €
Publisher Description
A remarkable collection of accounts of intrepid American aircrew shot down over enemy lines during World War II and how they got away.
To be an airman in the Eighth Air Force flying over the war-torn skies of Europe required skill, tenacity, and luck. Those who were shot down and evaded capture needed all of that and more if they were to make it back to friendly lines. These are their stories. Each is compiled from the original intelligence debrief written by the pilots or aircrew themselves.
Bill Yenne details how a spider web of escape routes sprang up, created by the local Résistance. Downed airmen were clothed, given false papers, and hidden so they could be smuggled back to England. These efforts were then supplemented by Allied intelligence agents. But the risks remained the same. Capture could mean death.
Their accounts are sometimes funny, often heartbreaking. P-47 pilot Joel McPherson feigned appendicitis and was able to escape from the local German military hospital – after he had his appendix removed. He spent weeks operating as a getaway driver for a Maquis bank robber gang before making it into neutral Spain. Bomber crewmen Fred Hartung and Norman Therrien found refuge at a French château, but later nearly froze to death crossing the icy Pyrenees with the Gestapo on their trail. The accounts of these men and others from the Mighty Eighth make this a story of defiance, foolhardiness, and bravery against the odds.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historian Yenne (America's Round-Engine Warbirds) offers an exhilarating account of the U.S. Army Air Corps Eighth Air Force, which flew daylight bombing missions from bases in England over Germany and occupied Europe from 1942 to 1945. Of the 210,000 crew members who flew these missions, Yenne notes, "50,000 were shot down over Europe. Of these, 26,000 died and 21,000 were captured as prisoners of war. Only 3,000 got away." Though bomber crews received training to evade capture if shot down over enemy territory, most did not speak the local languages. If they landed in Germany, they were likely to be killed by angry civilian mobs who considered them "flying terrorists." In France and Belgium, resistance fighters were instrumental to the survival of the downed crews, who sometimes joined their hosts' cause. (For instance, pilot Joel McPherson served as a getaway driver in rural France for a band of guerrillas that didn't know how to drive.) Airmen who attempted to return to Britain, usually over the Pyrenees, risked arrest in Spain. If they managed to make it back, they were permanently grounded, lest they be shot down again, captured, and forced to reveal how they escaped the first time. Drawing on firsthand accounts, Yenne relates this vigorous history as a series of individual stories about different airmen's crashes, exploits, and escapes. WWII history buffs will devour this.
