Dancing in the Dark: Escape and Evasion during the Second World War

9780595783656

0595783651

A flyer's World War Two diary reveals the terror in combat and tells of escape in the dark to avoid capture. Returned to Italy, missing comrades and the secrecy assigned to the status of the evader, harvest a bewildering new beginning. From the Introduction: ?We progress through its superb flying training to enter combat where the Army Air Force unintentionally places us in situations we would never arrange for ourselves and fails to provide support when we are abandon in enemy territory.' ?Not withstanding'a downed airman, freed from this large organization and its machinery, is, at first, happy to be alone, independent, and without supervision only to learn how unsatisfactory that condition is for needs change to where others and intact systems are employed to return to Italy. Becoming an evader, the influence its status document has as an unrecognized entity, places open acknowledgment of this syndrome far down on the list of important issues. Important subject matters are fear, cowardice, and the role the Army Air Force plays in making sense of it all.'