MIDNIGHT FLYBOYS

Valor and sacrifice in the skies over Europe.

Hollywood loves the French resistance; military historians not so much, but journalist Henderson, author of Hero Found: The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War, has an eye for wartime derring-do. By the time the U.S. entered World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, a far more hands-on leader than Franklin D. Roosevelt, was already an enthusiastic supporter of the resistance, which had begun slowly after the 1940 French defeat, expanded after Hitler’s June 1941 invasion of Russia, but received its greatest boost in 1943 when thousands of guerrilla bands (the Maquis) fled to the country to evade a law requiring all able-bodied Frenchmen to work in Germany. Throughout 1942 and 1943, Britain’s secret service flew planes over France, dropping supplies and agents. The U.S. was slow to get involved but late in 1943 began accepting volunteer crews from one of its largest bombers, the B-24, to undertake these dangerous, nighttime missions. From early 1944, individual planes would take off after dark, fly hundreds of miles, a task requiring superb navigation, and watch for a flashing light signal from the ground before dropping their load. By 1944, French resistance was organized and active in conducting intelligence and sabotage, tasks that peaked with the Normandy landings in June but continued until the war’s end. The author does not ignore the ongoing debate over whether this was an efficient use of Allied military resources, but mostly he describes the missions. There are biographies of individual fliers, French resisters, and agents dropped along with the supplies. A minority were women. Successful missions—60% to 70% succeeded—receive their due, but more pages describe those that weren’t, so there is a steady stream of mishaps, crashes, dramatic escapes, individual tragedies, and heroics.

Not an untold story, but Henderson is a pro, so readers are in good hands.