Down over France

Air Classics, Mar 2003 by Hulett, George

B-17 pilot recalls combat in the air and on the ground

Escaping certain death - not once but several times - is the core of this book about an American military man during World War Two. One Man's War by Tommy Lahore (Taylor Trade Publishing, $25.95) is the saga of a B- 17 pilot.

The author's story began when his plane collided with another B-17 while on a mission over France and went down. He then entered the French Resistance where he employed his knowledge of explosives to bomb German facilities. After an informant turned him in, he faced a death sentence and was sent to a Polish concentration camp Lahore endured the camp's gruesome conditions and eventually escaped just days before the Germans executed every man in the camp.

Lahore describes helping liberate a women's slave labor camp and instantly falling in love with one of the detainees. Lahore chopped off her hair, dressed her like a man, and freed her from the camp. After just three days together, the couple agreed to marry once Rosa checked on her family's well-being in Poland. They jumped separate trains and never saw each other again. Years later, the author learned that she had become a freedom fighter against the communists, was captured, and had been executed. This is the story of one man's difficult war - a war from which, in many ways, he never fully recovered.