Downed Allied Airmen And Evasion Of Capture

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Downed Allied Airmen and Evasion of Capture

Author : Herman Bodson
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 0786422165
Total Pages : 225 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (864 download)

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Book Synopsis Downed Allied Airmen and Evasion of Capture by : Herman Bodson

Download or read book Downed Allied Airmen and Evasion of Capture written by Herman Bodson and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2005-09-13 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume deals specifically with escape and evasion in the Netherlands, Belgium and France, an operation in which the author himself was directly involved, and discusses the role which these lines of escape played in the lives of airmen who were forced to bail out over enemy territory. He describes the ever-present risks the often nameless patriots faced, such as the danger of exposure and the threat of traitorous infiltration. Specific lines are traced geographically and their main participants discussed. Special emphasis is placed on the role of women in this resistance operation. Throughout the book, the reader benefits not only from the author's own personal recollections but also from his later on-location research. The final chapter concludes with statistical information directly related to this little known aspect of World War II. Appendices include lists of the airmen helped by the resistance movement.

Silent Heroes

Author : Sherri Greene Ottis
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813147980
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (131 download)

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Book Synopsis Silent Heroes by : Sherri Greene Ottis

Download or read book Silent Heroes written by Sherri Greene Ottis and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-07-11 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early years of World War II, it was an amazing feat for an Allied airman shot down over occupied Europe to make it back to England. By 1943, however, pilots and crewmembers, supplied with "escape kits," knew they had a 50 percent chance of evading capture and returning home. An estimated 12,000 French civilians helped make this possible. More than 5,000 airmen, many of them American, successfully traveled along escape lines organized much like those of the U.S. Underground Railroad, using secret codes and stopping in safe houses. If caught, they risked internment in a POW camp. But the French, Belgian, and Dutch civilians who aided them risked torture and even death. Sherri Ottis writes candidly about the pilots and crewmen who walked out of occupied Europe, as well as the British intelligence agency in charge of Escape and Evasion. But her main focus is on the helpers, those patriots who have been all but ignored in English-language books and journals. To research their stories, Ottis hiked the Pyrenees and interviewed many of the survivors. She tells of the extreme difficulty they had in avoiding Nazi infiltration by double agents; of their creativity in hiding evaders in their homes, sometimes in the midst of unexpected searches; of their generosity in sharing their meager food supplies during wartime; and of their unflagging spirit and courage in the face of a war fought on a very personal level.

Aircraft Down!

Author : Philip D. Caine
Publisher : Potomac Books Incorporated
ISBN 13 : 9781574887549
Total Pages : 284 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (875 download)

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Book Synopsis Aircraft Down! by : Philip D. Caine

Download or read book Aircraft Down! written by Philip D. Caine and published by Potomac Books Incorporated. This book was released on 2005 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authority on pilot evasion, escape, and survival recounts extraordinary adventures that took place in Holland, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, Albania, and Greece during World War II.

The Blister Club

Author : Michael Lee Lanning
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780811739740
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (397 download)

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Book Synopsis The Blister Club by : Michael Lee Lanning

Download or read book The Blister Club written by Michael Lee Lanning and published by . This book was released on 2021-10 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Lee Lanning tells the story of the courageous airmen who evaded capture and escaped to safety after being shot from the skies during World War II. Lanning covers the hows and whys of escape-and-evasion and aerial combat in the European theater, but also vividly captures the stories of the airmen who did the escaping and evading.

Cheating Hitler

Author : Martin W Bowman
Publisher : Air World
ISBN 13 : 1399073281
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (99 download)

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Book Synopsis Cheating Hitler by : Martin W Bowman

Download or read book Cheating Hitler written by Martin W Bowman and published by Air World. This book was released on 2023-12-31 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For most, and particularly the injured and the wounded, being shot down over Occupied Europe during the Second World War meant that capture was immediate, that imprisonment was almost inevitable. For some, evasion was possible, but rarely for long. For a relative handful, however, their evasion saw them eventually reach home once again. In this fascinating insight into how some Allied aircrew achieved the almost impossible and evade capture, the renowned aviation historian Martin W. Bowman has drawn together a set of tales of just some of these individuals. They are stories that illustrate the bravery and resourcefulness that characterized their experiences. British, American, Canadian and other Allied testimonies all feature to provide an authentic sense of the times at hand and the reality of life as an evader during this tumultuous and incredibly dangerous time. The stories of some Allied airmen, faced with sudden leaps into that dangerous unknown and their subsequent attempts at evasion, are retold here, many for the first time. Those who successfully evaded and were ‘free to fight again’ were few. Some were forced to remain in hiding under the guiding hands of the likes of the French Resistance or the patriots of the Comète Line – a few of the many who risked their lives helping Allied airmen, either to escape or to remain hidden until liberation, on pain of imprisonment, torture and death by their Nazi oppressors. Despite the threat of such retaliation, it has been said that as many as 100,000 people may have assisted evaders on one or more occasions before the war in Europe was brought to an end. This series of intoxicating chapters of evasion and life under the constant threat of recapture by the Nazis goes one step further in the drama of the war fought in the skies over the Third Reich and the subjugated countries of France, Belgium and Holland, revealing the constant nagging, and very real, fear that was endured by evaders and rescuers alike.

Silent Heroes

Author : Sherri Greene Ottis
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813188385
Total Pages : 331 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (131 download)

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Book Synopsis Silent Heroes by : Sherri Greene Ottis

Download or read book Silent Heroes written by Sherri Greene Ottis and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early years of World War II, it was an amazing feat for an Allied airman shot down over occupied Europe to make it back to England. By 1943, however, pilots and crewmembers, supplied with "escape kits," knew they had a 50 percent chance of evading capture and returning home. An estimated 12,000 French civilians helped make this possible. More than 5,000 airmen, many of them American, successfully traveled along escape lines organized much like those of the U.S. Underground Railroad, using secret codes and stopping in safe houses. If caught, they risked internment in a POW camp. But the French, Belgian, and Dutch civilians who aided them risked torture and even death. Sherri Ottis writes candidly about the pilots and crewmen who walked out of occupied Europe, as well as the British intelligence agency in charge of Escape and Evasion. But her main focus is on the helpers, those patriots who have been all but ignored in English-language books and journals. To research their stories, Ottis hiked the Pyrenees and interviewed many of the survivors. She tells of the extreme difficulty they had in avoiding Nazi infiltration by double agents; of their creativity in hiding evaders in their homes, sometimes in the midst of unexpected searches; of their generosity in sharing their meager food supplies during wartime; and of their unflagging spirit and courage in the face of a war fought on a very personal level.

Forgotten Casualties

Author : Kevin T Hall
Publisher : Fordham Univ Press
ISBN 13 : 1531502881
Total Pages : 323 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis Forgotten Casualties by : Kevin T Hall

Download or read book Forgotten Casualties written by Kevin T Hall and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2023-08-01 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sheds new light on the mistreatment of downed airmen during World War II and the overall relationship between the air war and state-sponsored violence. Throughout the vast expanse of the Pacific, the remoteness of Southeast Asia, and the rural and urban communities in Nazi-occupied Europe, more than 120,000 American airmen were shot down over enemy territory during World War II, thousands of whom were mistreated and executed. The perpetrators were not just solely fanatical soldiers or Nazi zealots but also ordinary civilians triggered by the death and devastation inflicted by the war. In Forgotten Casualties, author Kevin T Hall examines Axis violence inflicted on downed Allied airmen during this global war. Compared with all other armed conflicts, World War II exhibited the most widespread and ruthless violence committed against airmen. Flyers were deemed guilty because of their association with the Allied air forces, and their fate remained in the hands of their often-hostile captors. Axis citizens angered by the devastation inflicted by the war, along with the regimes’ consent and often encouragement of citizens to take matters into their own hands, resulted in thousands of Allied flyers’ being mistreated and executed by enraged civilians. Written to help advance the relatively limited discourse on the mistreatment against flyers in World War II, Forgotten Casualties is the first book to analyze the Axis violence committed against Allied airmen in a comparative, international perspective. Effectively comparing and contrasting the treatment of POWs in Germany with that of their counterparts in Japan, Hall’s thorough analysis of rarely seen primary and secondary sources sheds new light on the largely overlooked complex relationship among the air war, propaganda, the role of civilians, and state-sponsored terror during the radicalized conflict. Sources include postwar trial testimonies, Missing Air Crew Reports (MACR), Escape and Evasion reports, perpetrators’ explanations and rationalizations for their actions, extensive judicial sources, transcripts of court proceedings, autopsy reports, appeals for clemency, and justifications for verdicts. Drawing heavily on airmen’s personal accounts and the testimonies of both witnesses and perpetrators from the postwar crimes trials, Forgotten Casualties offers a new narrative of this largely overlooked aspect of Axis violence.

Air Forces Escape & Evasion Society

Author : Air Forces Escape and Evasion Society
Publisher : Turner Publishing Company
ISBN 13 : 9781563110344
Total Pages : 132 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis Air Forces Escape & Evasion Society by : Air Forces Escape and Evasion Society

Download or read book Air Forces Escape & Evasion Society written by Air Forces Escape and Evasion Society and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 1992 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the brave American men who flew and were shot down in Europe during World War II, but were able to escape imprisonment due to the efforts of those who aided them. A source of information on the European underground resistance groups of World War II. The book contains rare photographs, maps, and war documents.

The Blister Club

Author : Michael Lee Lanning
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 0811769720
Total Pages : 365 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (117 download)

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Book Synopsis The Blister Club by : Michael Lee Lanning

Download or read book The Blister Club written by Michael Lee Lanning and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-10-01 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War II, some 10,000 American bombers and fighters were shot down over Europe. Of the crews aboard, 26,000 men were killed, while 30,000 survived being shot down only to be captured and made prisoners of war. Against the longest of odds, nearly 3,000 airmen made it to the ground alive, evaded capture, and escaped to safety. These men proudly called themselves the Blister Club. Drawing on tens of thousands of pages of mostly untapped documents in the National Archives, Michael Lee Lanning tells the story of these courageous airmen. They had received escape-and-evasion (E & E) training, and some were lucky enough to land with their E-&-E kits—but all bets were off once they hit the ground. They landed after an air catastrophe. The geography was usually unfamiliar. Civilians might or might not be trustworthy. German soldiers and Gestapo agents hunted down airmen as well as civilians who dared help them. If an airman abandoned his uniform for civilian garb, he forfeited Geneva Convention protections. Most faced the daunting task of escaping on foot across hundreds of miles. The fortunate connected with one of the established escape routes to Spain or Switzerland or across the English Channel, or they hooked up with the underground resistance or friendly civilians. Upon return to friendly lines, these men were often able to provide valuable intelligence about enemy troop dispositions and civilian morale. Many volunteered to fly again even though regulations prohibited it. The Blister Club is history with a punch. With a historian’s eye, Lanning covers the hows and whys of escape-and-evasion and aerial combat in the European theater, but the book also vividly captures the stories of the airmen who did the escaping and evading, including that of a young pilot named Chuck Yeager, who, during his own escape, aided the French Resistance and helped another downed airman to safety—and then begged to fly again, eventually securing Eisenhower’s approval to return to the air, where he achieved ace status. Stories of escape are popular, especially those set during World War II, as are stories of the war in the air. Combining both of these, The Blister Club should find an enthusiastic audience.

Against the Odds

Author : Murray Adams
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780642265975
Total Pages : 169 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (659 download)

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Book Synopsis Against the Odds by : Murray Adams

Download or read book Against the Odds written by Murray Adams and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Escapes and Evasions by Allied Airmen, World War II. A collection of personal accounts from some of the 700 Allied airmen who escaped captivity, or evaded capture in enemy territory during the Second World War. Some are simple tales of unaided walking through the enemy's lines during the confusion of battle, while others are narratives of well planned and clever deceptions that led to freedom

The Freedom Line

Author : Peter Eisner
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0060096640
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis The Freedom Line by : Peter Eisner

Download or read book The Freedom Line written by Peter Eisner and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2005-05-31 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compared to Casablanca by the Washington Post, this a page–turning story of a group of resistance workers who secreted downed Allied fighter pilots through France and into safety in Spain during World War II. As war raged against Hitler's Germany, an increasing number of Allied fliers were shot down on missions against Nazi targets in occupied Europe. Many fliers parachuted safely behind enemy lines only to find themselves stranded and hunted down by the Gestapo. The Freedom Line traces the thrilling and true story of Robert Grimes, a 20–year–old American B–17 pilot whose plane was shot down over Belgium on Oct. 20, 1943. Wounded, disoriented, and scared, he was rescued by operatives of the Comet Line, a group of tenacious young women and men from Belgium, France, and Spain who joined forces to rescue the Allied aircrews and take them to safety. And on Christmas Eve 1943, he and a group of fellow Americans faced unexpected sudden danger and tragedy on the border between France and Spain. The road to safety was a treacherous journey by train, by bicycle, and on foot that stretched hundreds of miles across occupied France to the Pyrenees Mountains at the Spanish border. Armed with guile and spirit, the selfless civilian fighters of the Comet Line had risked their lives to create this underground railroad, and by this time in the war, they had saved hundreds of Americans, British, Australians, and other Allied airmen. Based on interviews with the survivors and in–depth archival research, The Freedom Line is the story of a group of friends who chose to act on their own out of a deep respect for liberty and human dignity. Theirs was a courage that presumed to take on a fearfully powerful foe with few defences.

Aircraft Down!

Author : Philip D. Caine
Publisher : Potomac Books
ISBN 13 : 9781574882346
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (823 download)

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Book Synopsis Aircraft Down! by : Philip D. Caine

Download or read book Aircraft Down! written by Philip D. Caine and published by Potomac Books. This book was released on 2000 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Six thrilling true stories of young airmen suddenly on their own behind enemy lines.

Terror Flyers

Author : Kevin T Hall
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253050162
Total Pages : 396 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (53 download)

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Book Synopsis Terror Flyers by : Kevin T Hall

Download or read book Terror Flyers written by Kevin T Hall and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-19 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Terror Flyers examines the "lynch justice" (Lynchjustiz) committed against American airmen in Nazi Germany during World War II. Using engaging first-person accounts of downed pilots, as well as previously unused primary sources, Terror Flyers challenges the notion that such lynchings were exclusively the domain of Nazi party officials and soldiers. New evidence reveals ordinary German people executed Lynchjustiz as well. Initially occurring as a spontaneous reaction to the devastation of the Allied air campaign against the cities of the Third Reich, Lynchjustiz offered the Nazi regime a unique propaganda opportunity to harness the outrage of the German population. Fueled by inspiration from America's own history of the lynching of African Americans, Nazi propaganda exploited the very same imagery found in US publications to escalate the anger of the German people. Drawing heavily on the accounts of the downed airmen themselves, testimonies from the "flyer trials" held in Dachau during 1945–48, and rarely seen Nazi propaganda, Terror Flyers offers a new narrative of this previously overlooked aspect of the Allied campaign in Europe and suggests that at least 3,000 cases of lynch justice likely occurred between 1943 and 1945.

The Lost Airman

Author : Seth Meyerowitz
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0698193962
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (981 download)

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Book Synopsis The Lost Airman by : Seth Meyerowitz

Download or read book The Lost Airman written by Seth Meyerowitz and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-01-19 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The remarkable, untold story of World War II American Air Force turret-gunner Staff Sergeant Arthur Meyerowitz, who was shot down over Nazi-occupied France and evaded Gestapo pursuers for more than six months before escaping to freedom. Bronx-born top turret-gunner Arthur Meyerowitz was one of only two crewmen who escaped death or immediate capture on the ground, when their plane was shot down near Cognac, France, in 1943. After fleeing the wreck, Arthur knocked on the door of an isolated farmhouse, whose owners hastily took him in. Fortunately, his hosts had a tight connection to the French resistance group Morhange and its founder, Marcel Taillandier, who arranged for Arthur’s transfers among safe houses in southern France, shielding him from the Gestapo. Based on recently declassified material, exclusive personal interviews, and extensive research into the French Resistance, The Lost Airman tells the tense and riveting story of Arthur’s hair-raising journey to freedom—a true story of endurance, perseverance, and escape during World War II. INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPHS AND MAP

Their Deeds of Valor

Author : Don Lasseter
Publisher : Xlibris Corporation
ISBN 13 : 1401073492
Total Pages : 464 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (1 download)

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Book Synopsis Their Deeds of Valor by : Don Lasseter

Download or read book Their Deeds of Valor written by Don Lasseter and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2002-11-18 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fly combat missions with the 8th air force in WWII! Feel the horror of being shot to pieces in mid-air, baling out or crash landing, then facing possible execution or imprisonment! Meet the french Samaritans, including many young women, who risked everything to hide, lodge, feed, and transport allied Airmen. Experience the constant danger of crisscrossing enemy occupied territory while trying to evade capture. Learn for the first time about a "Top Secret" effort called "Project Patriotism" to compensate European civilians for rescuing stranded airmen!These are the adventures of real heroes who Saved freedom for the world.

American Airman in the Belgian Resistance

Author : Jerome W. Sheridan
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 0786494972
Total Pages : 259 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (864 download)

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Book Synopsis American Airman in the Belgian Resistance by : Jerome W. Sheridan

Download or read book American Airman in the Belgian Resistance written by Jerome W. Sheridan and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-10-17 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In May of 1944, American airman Gerald E. Sorensen was shot down over Nazi occupied Belgium. The Belgian Resistance recovered Sorensen and sheltered him in the home of the Abeels family. Friendship between Sorensen and the Abeels blossomed and they came to consider each other as family. The Abeels were active in the Resistance and Sorensen ultimately volunteered to join his Belgian brother Roger Abeels in the Secret Army. Just moments before the British Army arrived to liberate the village of Marcq-lez-Enghien, Sorensen and Abeels were killed in combat with the Nazis, fighting side-by-side. This book tells Sorensen's story: his upbringing, education, marriage and military service; his evasion of capture and kinship with the Abeels; his experience in the Resistance; his final combat and his impact on those he left behind. But this book is more than a biography. It recounts the courageous struggle of the Belgians who risked everything to save Allied airmen and explains why Sorensen and Abeels are extraordinary symbols of the enduring values at the heart of today's transatlantic alliance.

Terror Flyers

Author : Kevin T Hall
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253052629
Total Pages : 314 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (53 download)

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Book Synopsis Terror Flyers by : Kevin T Hall

Download or read book Terror Flyers written by Kevin T Hall and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-19 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Terror Flyers examines the "lynch justice" (Lynchjustiz) committed against American airmen in Nazi Germany during World War II. Using engaging first-person accounts of downed pilots, as well as previously unused primary sources, Terror Flyers challenges the notion that such lynchings were exclusively the domain of Nazi party officials and soldiers. New evidence reveals ordinary German people executed Lynchjustiz as well. Initially occurring as a spontaneous reaction to the devastation of the Allied air campaign against the cities of the Third Reich, Lynchjustiz offered the Nazi regime a unique propaganda opportunity to harness the outrage of the German population. Fueled by inspiration from America's own history of the lynching of African Americans, Nazi propaganda exploited the very same imagery found in US publications to escalate the anger of the German people. Drawing heavily on the accounts of the downed airmen themselves, testimonies from the "flyer trials" held in Dachau during 1945–48, and rarely seen Nazi propaganda, Terror Flyers offers a new narrative of this previously overlooked aspect of the Allied campaign in Europe and suggests that at least 3,000 cases of lynch justice likely occurred between 1943 and 1945.