Forbidden Diary   
A book review about the
   B24 Liberator  

 Synopsis
   Getting there--and back alive--is more than half the battle! As a WWII combat navigator, John Lawrence Stewart survived 31 missions, but broke some rules. One of which was, he kept an accurate diary of the missions plus maps and charts issued only to navigators. Not embroidered by time's passage, his story is one man's thoroughly documented experiences as he guided his crew mates through enemy flak and safely home. 

From the Back Cover 
   AS a WWII combat navigator, John Stewart was the "tour guide" for a B-24 Liberator, launching from England to strike tactical and strategic targets in Occupied Europe and Germany. While surviving 31 missions flown with the 467th Bomber Group, Stewart broke two rules: he kept an accurate private diary documenting the specifics of those missions; and he retained several of the maps and charts issued only to navigators just prior to takeoff. With their assistance, he offers an engrossing, pointedly candid description of grueling aerial combat and of one man's uncensored observations as he shepherded his crewmates through nerve-crushing enemy flak to their targets-then safely home. Stewart vividly depicts the hazards he routinely confronted each time the live action departed from the manual's page. . .which was nearly every mission. Witness what occurs when precision guidance instruments fail and a navigator's aptly named "dead reckoning" is called upon to salvage a flight. And feel what it's like to learn your 37-mile-long bomb run requires you to plot a course directly into the teeth of a 130-knot headwind. . .leaving you to linger over enemy flak guns at a leisurely relative ground speed of  just 80 knots! The navigator's voice is one seldom heard in memoirs regarding the World War II missions of the celebrated 8th Air Force. Stewart's unvarnished recollections fill an enormous void with his painstakingly faithful reconstruction of that experience, and of that era. True story about the B-24 Liberator in the war in the Pacific