Aircraft Down, A great aviation story about a P-38 Lightning

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Aircraft Down, A story about the
P-38 Lightning in WWII

P-38 Lightning  Evading Capture in WWII Europe

Telling the stories of 6 separate evasion episodes in  Europe in WWII, featuring the P-38 Lightning

Flying a P-38 Lightning took special skills.  This twin engine Warbird was a fantastic WW2 fighter.  This book covers military aircraft of WWII of the USAAF, which is now the USAF.  This book covers the USAAF pilots that crashed behind enemy lines with their efforts to evade the enemy and about the people who helped these men.  This book was described as gripping, the readers book reviews reported as they couldn't put the book down.  The book reviews report a five star rating.

The P-38 lightning was built by Lockheed during WW2.  The P-38 is 37' 10" long and has a wingspan of 52' 0".  The P-38 lightning used two Allison V-1710-27/29 engines each having 1150 hp giving the airplane 2300 hp total.  The max speed of the P-38 is 395 mph.
There are many versions of this plane, these specs cover only one version.

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Aircraft Down

A USAF Pilot Evades Capture in WW2 Europe

A USAF P38 pilot evades capture in WW2 Europe

Click Here to buy the Aircraft Down
Evading Capture in WWII Europe
 by Philip D. Caine 

 
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I found this book gives a lot of insight to evaders and some of the less well known facts of the war. The book has a fairly fast pace but also has a lot of detail. The first three stories deal with  downed flyers in France and Belgium who eventually made it to Spain and then British held  Gibraltar. Spain was sympathetic to Germany, and treated evaders harshly until 1943 when it  became politically necessary for them to develop a better relationship with the Allies.

The fourth story is of a later evader in Belgium who was able to meet the oncoming Allies in 1944  instead of going to Spain. The fifth story details the evasion of an entire bomber crew from the  island of Corfu over to Albania. They stayed at a guerilla camp in the mountains and eventually  escaped by ship to Italy after much hardship. The final story is of of a flyer who evaded through  Italy. Originally captured by the Germans upon landing, he was released from jail with many others when Italy signed an armistice  with the allies. He spent the rest of his time evading the Germans and traveling around Italy (with much help from Italian partisans)  and finally escaping to the Allied lines after many setbacks.

One of the central themes of the book is the sacrifice made by the occupied population to feed and help the Allied fliers escape.  Every story has a follow-up at the end about the later life of the evader and what happened to the people that helped them evade (if  known).

   

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