Description
Book Synopsis For three years, Staff Sergeant Charles M. Eyer served as a B-17 ball turret gunner over Europe during World War II. Based in part on a secret journal he kept as a prisoner of war, this book records Eyer''s firsthand account of his harrowing 59 combat missions (B-17 crewmen could not expect to survive 10), his escape from a burning B-17 deep inside Germany, the horrors of confinement in a Nazi POW camp, and his survival of an 80-day forced march during the brutal winter of 1944-45.
Table of Contents
- Preface 1
- Introduction 3
- 1. Pre-War Life 9
- 2. The Making of a Gunner 12
- 3. North Africa 31
- 4. New Crew and New Adventures 61
- 5. Return to Hell 70
- 6. Day of Days—May 12, 1944 87
- 7. Stalag Luft IV 109
- 8. The March 140
- 9. Liberation 175
- 10. Postwar 183
- Epilogue 189
- Appendices
- A. POW Journal 193
- B. POW Postcards 199
- C. Letter to Mother 202
- D. Liberation Journal 203
- Chapter Notes 207
- Bibliography 213
- Index 215
