The Last Pilot

Shortlisted for the Author's Club Best First Novel Award 2016, The Last Pilot is a breathtaking debut novel of the space race and of one man's courage in the face of unthinkable loss. 1940s America: Jim Harrison is a test pilot in the United States Air Force, one of the exalted few. He spends his days in a precarious dance with death above the Mojave Desert and his nights at Pancho's bar. He and his wife Grace are desperate for a child and joyous when, against all odds, she conceives. 15 years later and Sputnik has put America in a panic—NASA, newly-formed, is tasked with being first to conquer space. When his young family is thrown into crisis, Harrison is desperate to escape: he seizes a ticket to the moon and trains as an astronaut at Cape Canaveral. But while he is taught to be "afraid to panic" at the controls, he can't apply the same discipline at home, struggling first to hold onto Grace and then to keep a grip on reality itself. Set against the backdrop of one of the most exciting and emotionally charged periods in American history, The Last Pilot is a powerful story of of an everyday hero, tested to the limits, physically and mentally.

*A NATIONAL BESTSELLER!* The New York Post calls The Last Fighter Pilot a "must-read" book. From April to August of 1945, Captain Jerry Yellin and a small group of fellow fighter pilots flew dangerous bombing and strafe missions out of Iwo Jima over Japan. Even days after America dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, the pilots continued to fly. Though Japan had suffered unimaginable devastation, the emperor still refused to surrender. Bestselling author Don Brown (Treason) sits down with Yelllin, now ninety-three years old, to tell the incredible true story of the final combat mission of World War II. Nine days after Hiroshima, on the morning of August 14th, Yellin and his wingman 1st Lieutenant Phillip Schlamberg took off from Iwo Jima to bomb Tokyo. By the time Yellin returned to Iwo Jima, the war was officially over—but his young friend Schlamberg would never get to hear the news. The Last Fighter Pilot is a harrowing first-person account of war from one of America's last living World War II veterans.

Winner of the Author's Club Best First Novel Award A Finalist for the East Anglian Book Award for Fiction “The Last Pilot made me cry and brought back all my old Right Stuff feels. A brilliant debut. I loved it.”—Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk Jim Harrison is a test pilot in the United States Air Force, one of the exalted few. He spends his days cheating death in the skies above the Mojave Desert and his nights at his friend Pancho’s bar, often with his wife, Grace. She and Harrison are secretly desperate for a child, and when, unexpectedly, Grace learns that she is pregnant, the two are overjoyed. America becomes swept up in the fervor of the Space Race, while Harrison turns his attention home to welcome his daughter, Florence, into the world. But as he and Grace confront thrills and challenges of parenthood, they are met with sudden tragedy. The aftermath will haunt the Harrisons and strain their marriage, as Jim struggles to make life-and-death decisions under circumstances that are altogether new. Set against the backdrop of one of the most emotionally charged periods in American history, The Last Pilot by Benjamin Johncock is the mesmerizing story of a couple’s crisis of faith—in themselves, and in each another—and the limits they test to rediscover it.

Resulting from the authors’ deep research into these two pre-Shuttle astronaut groups, many intriguing and untold stories behind the selection process are revealed in the book. The often extraordinary backgrounds and personal ambitions of these skilled pilots, chosen to continue NASA’s exploration and knowledge of the space frontier, are also examined. In April 1966 NASA selected 19 pilot astronauts whose training was specifically targeted to the Apollo lunar landing missions and the Earth-orbiting Skylab space station. Three years later, following the sudden cancellation of the USAF’s highly classified Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) project, seven military astronauts were also co-opted into NASA’s space program. This book represents the final chapter by the authors in the story of American astronaut selections prior to the era of the Space Shuttle. Through personal interviews and original NASA documentation, readers will also gain a true insight into a remarkable age of space travel as it unfolded in the late 1960s, and the men who flew those historic missions.

"My Last Flight Out" is a real story from one of the last pilots (the author) who escaped Viet Nam, a day after the new South Vietnamese government unconditionally surrendered on April 30, 1975. It was a riskiest attempted escape during the country in a chaotic situation a day after American evacuated Saigon. The author traded death for life in his series of actions to do-or-die. Fortunately, he saved not only his life but also his family and about the other 80 women and children left on the remote island Con Son in the last hours. He picked them up and flew his Chinook one-way-out without return to the Pacific Ocean and landed on USS Okinawa carrier at the end of April 30, 1975. "My last Flight Out" is an incredible long survival journey against overwhelming all odds. The story of selfless military leadership with guts, creativities, and perseverance overcame death to live. It is an extraordinary true story of the long and hard surviving journey after the war.

Anita Shreve's hauntingly beautiful #1 bestseller and Oprah's Book Club selection about tragedy, grief, betrayal, and the 'impossibility of knowing another person.' As a pilot's wife, Kathryn has learned to expect both intense exhilaration and long periods alone, but nothing has prepared her for a late-night knock that lets her know her husband has died in a crash. Until now, Kathryn Lyons's life has been peaceful if unextraordinary: a satisfying job teaching high school in the New England mill town of her childhood; a picture-perfect home by the ocean; a precocious, independent-minded fifteen-year-old daughter; and a happy marriage whose occasional dull passages she attributes to the unavoidable deadening of time. As Kathryn struggles with her grief, she descends into a maelstrom of publicity stirred up by the modern hunger for the details of tragedy. Even before the plane is located in waters off the Irish coast, the relentless scrutiny of her husband's life begins to bring a bizarre personal mystery into focus. Could there be any truth to the increasingly disturbing rumors that he had a secret life?

Anita Shreve's hauntingly beautiful #1 bestseller and Oprah's Book Club selection about tragedy, grief, betrayal, and the 'impossibility of knowing another person.' As a pilot's wife, Kathryn has learned to expect both intense exhilaration and long periods alone, but nothing has prepared her for a late-night knock that lets her know her husband has died in a crash. Until now, Kathryn Lyons's life has been peaceful if unextraordinary: a satisfying job teaching high school in the New England mill town of her childhood; a picture-perfect home by the ocean; a precocious, independent-minded fifteen-year-old daughter; and a happy marriage whose occasional dull passages she attributes to the unavoidable deadening of time. As Kathryn struggles with her grief, she descends into a maelstrom of publicity stirred up by the modern hunger for the details of tragedy. Even before the plane is located in waters off the Irish coast, the relentless scrutiny of her husband's life begins to bring a bizarre personal mystery into focus. Could there be any truth to the increasingly disturbing rumors that he had a secret life?

""My Last Flight Out"" is a real story from one of the last pilots (the author) who escaped Viet Nam, a day after the new South Vietnamese government unconditionally surrendered on April 30, 1975. It was a riskiest attempted escape during the country in a chaotic situation a day after American evacuated Saigon. The author traded death for life in his series of actions to do-or-die. Fortunately, he saved not only his life but also his family and about the other 80 women and children left on the remote island Con Son in the last hours. He picked them up and flew his Chinook one-way-out without return to the Pacific Ocean and landed on USS Okinawa carrier at the end of April 30, 1975. ""My last Flight Out"" is an incredible long survival journey against overwhelming all odds. The story of selfless military leadership with guts, creativities, and perseverance overcame death to live. It is an extraordinary true story of the long and hard surviving journey after the war.