Lightning Down

August 16, 2021
Bestseller Clavin (coauthor, Blood and Treasure) delivers a sluggish account of an American fighter pilot’s imprisonment at the Buchenwald concentration camp during WWII. Born in Ferndale, Wash., in 1921, Joe Moser enlisted in the Army Air Corps after Pearl Harbor, earned a Distinguished Flying Cross at age 22, and made it through D-Day unscathed. Soon thereafter, however, his plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire and he was forced to bail out over occupied France. Expecting to be taken to a POW camp where he would be protected by the Geneva convention, Moser, along with 167 other Allied pilots, was instead designated a “terrorist” and sent to Buchenwald, where the Nazis held foreign spies, Resistance fighters, and other foreign and domestic enemies. Clavin profiles the other pilots and paints the horrors of life in the concentration camp in harrowing detail, describing rats feeding on piles of corpses and guards beating prisoners to death with rocks. Eventually, the prisoners were moved to a series of POW camps and were liberated by American forces in April 1945. Though the details Clavin unearths about how close the airmen came to being executed are grimly fascinating, frequent asides slow the pace down, and Moser remains a somewhat distant figure throughout. This WWII survival story is best suited to completists.

October 1, 2021
The journalist and bestselling popular historian returns with the story of an American soldier who survived Nazi terror. Generally, Allied POWs in Germany fared better than those in Japan--but not the group that included fighter pilot Joe Moser, Clavin's subject for this scrupulous, squirm-inducing account. The author narrates from Moser's point of view, and his sources include Moser's 2009 memoir. Raised on a farm and fascinated by flying, Moser enlisted in May 1942, underwent the 21 months of training required for the P-38 fighter jet, and flew his first mission in April 1944. Moving back and forth between the big picture and Moser's 44 missions, Clavin delivers a workmanlike account of the war that ends in August, when Moser's plane was shot down over France and he was captured. It's significant that he was taken to Fresnes prison near Paris, where Allied airmen were held, instead of being sent to POW camps. After liberation, in the scramble to evacuate Germany's high command, a group of soldiers were labeled "terror bombers." They were crammed into boxcars and shipped to Buchenwald, Germany's largest concentration camp; by fall, they were starved and disease-ridden. However, when he learned about their plight, a Luftwaffe officer, offended at this illegal treatment of fellow flyers, arranged their transfer to a POW camp. Readers relieved that their ordeal was over will be shocked by what followed in January. With the Red Army approaching, authorities evacuated the camp, forcing prisoners to walk across Germany in a freezing winter with only the food they carried with them. More died than at Buchenwald before arriving at another camp far worse than the one they had left. With Nazi Germany on its last legs, they expected a short stay, but two months passed before liberation. Readers can then enjoy Clavin's traditional concluding description of the remaining years of the lives of Moser and other major figures. A fast-paced account of a little-known POW experience.

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October 15, 2021
As a young man, Joe Moser worked hard on his family farm in Ferndale, Washington. The sight of a plane overhead stoked an aspiration; Moser wanted to become a pilot, and the United States' entry into WWII offered him a chance to fulfill his dream. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps and learned to pilot the P-38 Lightning, receiving his pilot's wings in 1943. By 1944, the momentum of the war shifted in the Allies' favor, but the Germans remained resolute in their fight. Ahead of the Normandy invasion, Moser's squadron participated in aerial assaults, missions fraught with grave peril. When Moser's plane was shot down in August of 1944, he was taken prisoner and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, where survival would become a second-by-second ordeal. Investigative journalist and history author Clavin (Dodge City, 2017) writes Moser's remarkable story into a heartrending tale of human endurance, showing the courage and strength of Moser and his fellow prisoners.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from November 1, 2021

A 22-year-old farm boy from Washington State, Joe Moser flew off on his 44th combat mission over occupied France on August 13, 1944, and joined nearly 150 Allied airmen as prisoners in the brutal Buchenwald concentration camp after having to bail out of his burning plane. The men were barely surviving when orders came down from Hitler to execute them all. No. 1 New York Times best-selling author Clavin reveals what happened next; with a 150,000-copy first printing.

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