Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany

by Donald L. Miller

one of these men told a friend that he used to think that “the most mournful sound in the world” was the whistle of a freight train in the middle of the night. That was wrong, he said. It was the “the hum of engines on the flight line” in the darkness before dawn.

After the war, William Lawley kept in touch with his crew. One of his gunners, Ralph Braswell, visited Lawley at his home outside Montgomery, Alabama, before his death in 1999. “He had arthritis,” said Braswell, “but after I shook his hands, I said, ‘They’re beautiful. They saved my life.’ ”

Flak was a grossly inefficient defensive measure. On average, it took 8,500 rounds from the newest version of the 88mm gun to down a single bomber. Yet it was a devastatingly effective psychological weapon, designed to unnerve the aircrews and impair bombing accuracy.

One of the most ingenious of the prisoners’ self-created institutions was “Foodaco.” At this “Stalag Swap Shop,” located in the camp cookhouse, Red Cross food was exchanged in a highly regulated barter system, with cigarettes serving as the principal medium of exchange.

[It] is barbed—there are exactly 8,369 barbs in his stark perimeter in front of our barracks. I have counted them. We all count them, often. There used to be 8,370 barbs, but recently one has rusted and fallen off. This was quite an event.

All of the Luft camps had exuberant theater groups. Some men had stage experience, but enthusiasm was more plentiful than talent.

“The only truthful newspaper in Germany” is how editor Lowell Bennett, a former international correspondent, described Pow Wow (Prisoners of War Waiting on Winning), the daily underground newspaper he helped establish at Stalag Luft I.

When John Egan arrived in Hobbs to be the best man at his friend’s wedding, he was carrying a silk parachute. The bride’s mother knew at once what it was for, and in a day and night fashioned it into a wedding dress. As the bride walked down the aisle with her father, Egan leaned in toward Cleven and whispered, “Where’s the ripcord?”