A suspenseful WWII page-turner and an enormously witty tale of camaraderie and collusion, Ted Fahrenwald's memoir takes you behind the scenes to offer unique insights into the daily courage and intrigues of the French Resistance and various Allies as they battled the vicious German occupiers-and suffered the violent retribution that was often the result. At 22, Ted was a daredevil pilot on his 100th mission when he bailed out of his burning Mustang two days after D-Day. Parachuting into the Nazi-infested farmland of Normandy, he was immediately picked up by the Maquis, the rural guerrilla arm of the Resistance. His wily and gregarious personality, high-school French, and backwoods skills helped him forge deep and lifelong friendships with these heroic patriots. Ted joined them on their night-time raids and relished their frequent parties fueled by home-brewed Calvados brandy. But he was determined to rejoin his squadron in England, so he left his helpers to hike north through heavily occupied forests toward the Channel Coast and the advancing Allied liberation armies. Captured by the Wehrmacht, interrogated as a spy, and interned in a POW camp, he made a daring escape just before his scheduled deportation to Germany. Being drafted by the unruly Maquis and captured by the German army didn't diminish Ted's talent for spotting the ironic humor in even the most aggravating situations-nor his penchant for extracting his own improvised and sometimes hilarious version of justice.

“Exquisitely funny, these letters are also an historical treasure that gives tremendous insight into the day-to-day life of a typical USAAF fighter group” (Jay A. Stout, author of Vanished Hero). Ted Fahrenwald flew P-47s and P-51s with the famed 352nd Fighter Group out of Bodney, England, during the critical tipping-point period of the air war over Europe. A classic devil-may-care fighter pilot, he was also a distinctively talented writer and correspondent. After a typical day of aerial combat and strafing missions over Nazi-occupied Europe—and of course, the requisite partying and creative mischief on base—Ted would sit in his Nissen hut at a borrowed manual typewriter and compose exquisitely humorous letters detailing his exploits in the air and on the ground to his family back home. But these letters are not the mundane missives of a homesick young man who missed his mother’s cooking. Rather, this journalistically educated and incurably comedic pilot detailed his aerial exploits in a hilarious and self-effacing style that combines the vernacular of the day with flights of joyful imagination rivaling St. Exupery. And he didn’t sanitize his letters—much. Ted enthusiastically narrates the day-to-day rollercoaster ribaldry that was the natural M.O. of the young men who were tasked to kill Hitler’s Luftwaffe. His descriptions of near-constant drinking, skirt-chasing, gambling, and out-and-out tomfoolery put the lie to the notion of the Greatest Generation as an earnest band of do-gooders. Praise for Ted Fahrenwald’s Bailout Over Normandy “A 1940s masterpiece with a heart and soul unlike anything that’s been published.” —Jay Stout, author of Fortress Ploesti “Get to know one of the more rambunctious members of the Greatest Generation with this memoir.” —Book News, Inc.

Jay Stout breaks new ground in World War II aviation history with this gripping account of one of the war's most highly decorated American fighter groups.

It was a battle that would change the course of World War II... New York Times bestselling author Lauren Tarshis commemorates the Normandy landings in this pulse-pounding story of the largest seaborne invasion in history. Eleven-year-old Paul’s French village has been under Nazi control for years. His Jewish best friend has disappeared. Food is scarce. And there doesn’t seem to be anything Paul can do to make things better. Then Paul finds an American paratrooper in a tree near his home. The soldier says the Allies have a plan to crush the Nazis once and for all. But the soldier needs Paul’s help. This is Paul’s chance to make a difference. Soon he finds himself in the midst of the largest invasion in history. Can he do his part to turn horror into hope? New York Times bestselling author Lauren Tarshis tells the story of the battle that became the foundation for the Allied victory in World War II. Includes a section of nonfiction backmatter with more facts about the real-life event.

On June 12, 1944, six days after the D-Day invasion of Normandy, U.S. fighter pilot Fred Moretto is ambushed by German Messerschmitt 109s. Barely escaping his burning P-47 Thunderbolt, Lieutenant Moretto parachutes into the French countryside where villagers working for the Resistance conceal him from the Germans for two months in a bread oven, a secret perch in an attic, and a hayloft. In 1993, nearly 50 years later, Kim Moretto Niemeier convinces her father to return to France. Reuniting with the people and the places where he survived against all odds re-invigorates his French Connection and launches Kims 20-year odyssey to uncover the dramatic details of her fathers inspiring story.