Editorial Content for Lightning Down: A World War II Story of Survival
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Bestselling author Tom Clavin has brought the dark past back to life and light in LIGHTNING DOWN, a stirring account of the perils faced and ordeals suffered by American airman Joe Moser, who was captured by the Nazis near the end of the war in Europe.
Moser was one of many American farm boys who had dreams of becoming a pilot. It seemed like an impossible goal until war broke out on December 7, 1941. He was expediently trained and deployed to Europe to fly a P-38 Lightning, one of the military’s finest crafts, manufactured in answer to the call to defeat Hitler’s Luftwaffe.
"Reading this war and captivity history as seen through the eyes of a strong, resilient survivor is a true education, surely far more disturbing than any fictional 'horror story' --- because it really happened."
When the P-38 crashed in occupied France in August 1944, Moser and his cohorts from America, Canada and New Zealand were put in cattle cars and shipped to Buchenwald, among the worst of the Nazis’ notorious concentration camps. The pilots, given the designation Terrorfliegers, were to be treated as prisoners of war, a step or two above those who had entered the camp as Jews or traitors to the Reich, whose torments and extermination they would soon witness.
Clavin makes starkly clear the minute-by-minute horrors observed and experienced by Moser and his companions. The men were placed in vastly overcrowded quarters, put to work in the camp’s quarry, and given worm-filled soup and bread made of sawdust for sustenance. They would watch as those around them were systematically tortured, hanged or simply shot at the slightest sign of disobedience, or merely for the sport of such evil, sadistic captors as Karl-Otto Koch and his demonic wife, given the nickname “the Bitch of Buchenwald.”
Moser’s extreme deprivations ended when the camp where he was housed was liberated by American forces the following April. All cheered to the sight of the raising of the stars and stripes where a swastika once had flown.
Clavin has constructed an account filled with harrowing images that will linger in readers’ minds as they doubtless lingered in Moser’s memory. In fact, his own family didn’t know the full range of those experiences until Moser, in his 80s, collaborated with Gerald Baron on his memoir, A FIGHTER PILOT IN BUCHENWALD, from which, among many other sources, Clavin has mined much material.
Reading this war and captivity history as seen through the eyes of a strong, resilient survivor is a true education, surely far more disturbing than any fictional “horror story” --- because it really happened. The comfort comes as we learn that some fortunate few survived and, like Moser, came home to lives of quiet prosperity and enduring patriotism.
Teaser
On August 13, 1944, Joe Moser set off on his 44th combat mission over occupied France. Soon, he would join almost 170 other Allied airmen as prisoners in Buchenwald, one of the most notorious and deadly of Nazi concentration camps. Tom Clavin's LIGHTNING DOWN tells this largely untold and riveting true story. Moser was just 22 years old, a farm boy from Washington State who fell in love with flying. During the War he realized his dream of piloting a P-38 Lightning, one of the most effective weapons the Army Air Corps had against the powerful German Luftwaffe. But on that hot August morning, he had to bail out of his damaged, burning plane. Captured immediately, Moser’s journey into hell began.
Promo
On August 13, 1944, Joe Moser set off on his 44th combat mission over occupied France. Soon, he would join almost 170 other Allied airmen as prisoners in Buchenwald, one of the most notorious and deadly of Nazi concentration camps. Tom Clavin's LIGHTNING DOWN tells this largely untold and riveting true story. Moser was just 22 years old, a farm boy from Washington State who fell in love with flying. During the War he realized his dream of piloting a P-38 Lightning, one of the most effective weapons the Army Air Corps had against the powerful German Luftwaffe. But on that hot August morning, he had to bail out of his damaged, burning plane. Captured immediately, Moser’s journey into hell began.
About the Book
An American fighter pilot doomed to die in Buchenwald but determined to survive.
On August 13, 1944, Joe Moser set off on his 44th combat mission over occupied France. Soon, he would join almost 170 other Allied airmen as prisoners in Buchenwald, one of the most notorious and deadly of Nazi concentration camps. Tom Clavin's LIGHTNING DOWN tells this largely untold and riveting true story.
Moser was just 22 years old, a farm boy from Washington State who fell in love with flying. During the War he realized his dream of piloting a P-38 Lightning, one of the most effective weapons the Army Air Corps had against the powerful German Luftwaffe. But on that hot August morning he had to bail out of his damaged, burning plane. Captured immediately, Moser’s journey into hell began.
Moser and his courageous comrades from England, Canada, New Zealand, and elsewhere endured the most horrific conditions during their imprisonment...until the day the orders were issued by Hitler himself to execute them. Only a most desperate plan would save them.
The page-turning momentum of LIGHTNING DOWN is like that of a thriller, but the stories of imprisoned and brutalized airmen are true and told in unforgettable detail, led by the distinctly American voice of Joe Moser, who prays every day to be reunited with his family.
LIGHTNING DOWN is a can’t-put-it-down inspiring saga of brave men confronting great evil and great odds against survival.
Audiobook available, read by George Newbern
