Military historian Gregory A. Freeman brings to life for the first time the dramatic story of a young American bomber crew that was forced to bail out over Germany in August 1944. After landing, they were captured and lynched in a two-hour assault by local townspeople who had fallen prey to the worst impulses of the ravages of war. The families of these airmen were never told what actually happened to their loved ones and the few survivors had to carry this burden alone for years. After the war, a highly dramatic trial took place in the German town, forcing the locals to confront their wartime atrocity. Drawing from government archives, photos, trial records, interviews with family members, and letters home from the crew, Freeman creates a vivid narrative of the dramatic event and follows the survivors’ moving, sometimes heartrending, efforts to understand how good men could die in such a terrible way and how those left behind are supposed to go on. Less
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