Shot Down

"Shot Down is a compelling story of our B-17 aircrews that flew, fought, and died over Europe to save a continent from tyranny and oppression. There were over 56,000 downed airmen in World War II. Lt. Howard Snyder and the crew of the Susan Ruth were one of those crews that went down over Europe... --General Duncan J. McNabb, USAF, retired, 33rd Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force." -- back cover

“An incredibly rich life story . . . It is also a significant addition to Australian military, aviation, and prisoner of war history. Uplifting. Read it.” —Bomber Command Australia Alex Kerr’s Wellington, a twin-engine bomber, was shot down over Germany in 1941. At first hospitalized with hopes of repatriation, he unexpectedly found himself a prisoner in a German POW camp. Throughout those trying four years he was held captive, Alex kept a secret diary. This book reproduces his diary entries in a fascinating account of all aspects of life in a wartime prison. He describes being part of the infamous Long March during which he and his comrades were strafed by Allied aircraft; sixty POWs were killed and one hundred wounded. Alex escaped the march with a mate, passing through the front lines between the British and German forces to commandeer a German mayor’s car and drive back to Brussels to take the next aircraft to freedom. Alex’s charm and optimistic outlook will buoy the reader throughout, and the camaraderie between him and his captive comrades is always entertaining. This is an authentic Second World War adventure from being shot out of the sky, to incarceration and the ultimate triumph of escape and the end of the war. “Based on a secret diary maintained during four years of imprisonment, this is an authentic voice from WWII. The author demonstrates charm and optimism which lightens what might have been a depressing story. Recommended.” —Firetrench

A software mogul gears up to launch a revolutionary surveillance system. A terrorist mastermind prepares to wage war against the Indian state. A young man is found dead under suspicious circumstances. One morning, the body of a young man is found by the railway tracks, battered and bruised. He is soon identified as software engineer Vishal Deshmukh, aka Shot, by his estranged elder brother, Ajay. But the circumstances surrounding Shot?s death are murky, and Ajay is confounded when the autopsy of reveals traces of hard liquor and cocaine in his blood. When he notices strange injuries on Shot?s hands, he is convinced that his brother was tortured and killed. With the police and hospital authorities dismissing his plea for help, Ajay decides to dig deeper on his own, little suspecting that he is about to unravel a terrifying plot with deadly implications for an entire nation. Caught in a race against time, he must piece together Shot?s final days and find the killers?before they find him.

When a bullet knocks Malik and the Captain's hot-air balloon out of the sky, Malik goes into wilderness survival mode. Actually, he's been in survival mode ever since the world fell apart. Whatever the crisis, he's always counted on the Gene Matterhorn Wilderness Survival Guidebook when things got crazy. Now he and the Captain are in the middle of miles of Kentucky wilderness, being chased by manhunters who believe hunting the weak is their post-apocalyptic duty. Malik is about to find out just how good his survival skills are.

The history of the Cold War is littered with what-ifs, and in Diplomacy Shot Down, E. Bruce Geelhoed explores one of the most intriguing: What if the Soviets had not shot down the American U-2 spy plane and President Dwight D. Eisenhower had visited the Soviet Union in 1960 as planned? In August 1959, with his second term nearing its end, Eisenhower made the surprise announcement that he and Soviet premier Nikita S. Khrushchev would visit each other’s countries as a means of “thawing some of the ice” of the Cold War. Khrushchev’s trip to the United States in September 1959 resulted in plans for a four-power summit involving Great Britain and France, and for Eisenhower’s visit to Russia in early summer 1960. Then, in May 1960, the Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 surveillance plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers. The downing of Powers’s plane was, in Geelhoed’s recounting of this episode in Cold War history, not just a diplomatic crisis. The ensuing collapse of the summit and the subsequent cancelation of Eisenhower’s trip to the Soviet Union amounted to a critical missed opportunity for improved US-Soviet relations at a crucial juncture in the Cold War. In a blow-by-blow description of the diplomatic overtures, the U-2 incident, and the aftermath, Diplomacy Shot Down draws upon Eisenhower’s projected itinerary and unmade speeches and statements, as well as the American and international press corps’ preparations for covering the aborted visit, to give readers a sense of what might have been. Eisenhower’s prestige within the Soviet Union was so great, Geelhoed observes, that the trip, if it had happened, could well have led to a détente in the increasingly dangerous US-Soviet relationship. Instead, the cancelation of Ike’s visit led to an escalation in hostilities that played out around the globe and nearly guaranteed that the “missile gap” would reemerge as an issue in the 1960 presidential campaign. A detailed account of an episode that defined the Cold War for a generation, Diplomacy Shot Down is, in its insights and revelations, something rarer still—a behind-the-scenes look at history in the unmaking.

Sentenced to death for abandoning his unit, a soldier recounts the events leading up to his arrest. The reality of trench warfare is a shock to Allan McBride. Like many other young soldiers, he enthusiastically signed up for the chance to join the war effort and be a part of the fighting. But after months in the ravaged battlefields, watching men, including his friend Ken, get blown up by German shelling, something in Allan snaps and he leaves his unit, believing he is "walking home to Canada" to get help for his friend. After nearly a week of wandering aimlessly, Allan is taken in by a band of real deserters — men who have abandoned their units and live on the edge of survival in the woods of northern France. Once Allan realizes what he's done, he is paralyzed by the reality of his circumstance: if he stays with these men, it's possible they will be found and have to face the consequences; and if he returns to his unit, he will be charged with desertion — a charge punishable by death. In this outstanding new title in the I Am Canada series, acclaimed author John Wilson explores life in the horrific trenches of WWI and the effect of battle on a shell-shocked soldier.

Thousands of airmen shot down over enemy soil between 1940 and 1945 miraculously escaped capture. This compelling narrative reveals their stories, based on first-hand interviews, photographs and official documents, featuring heroes from Britain, Canada, Australia and other Commonwealth countries. These men knew extreme adversity: hunger, thirst, injury, isolation and the constant fear of capture. They also knew great kindness from the local people who risked everything to help them. Their journeys to safety – often across savage terrain – tested human endurance and ingenuity to the very limit.

A pilot’s first-hand account of the Battle of Britain. “Quite simply one of the best books I have ever read about the men who fought the war in the air.” —Daily Mail On 12 August 1940, during the Battle of Britain, in an engagement with Dornier Do 17s, Geoffrey Page was shot down into the English Channel, suffering severe burns. He spent much of the next two years in hospitals, undergoing plastic surgery, but recovered sufficiently to pursue an extremely distinguished war and postwar career. This eloquently written and critically acclaimed autobiography tells of his wartime exploits in the air and on the ground. He was a founding member of The Guinea Pig Club—formed by badly burnt aircrew—and this is a fascinating account of the Club, of the courage and bravery of “The Few,” and of Geoffrey’s later life and achievements, most particularly in the creation of The Battle of Britain memorial. “For sheer narrative power, it ranks with the best.” —The Daily Telegraph