First published 2010
The phone rings at dawn on June 26, 1948. Former World War II airmen across America get forty-eight hours to report for duty. Harry Truman needs them back. Stalin has blockaded Berlin, trapping two million people in the western sectors. Soviet forces control every road, rail line, and waterway into the city. The dictator expects the Allies to abandon Berlin or start another world war. Truman refuses both options. He orders an airlift. These civilian pilots, navigators, and mechanics had just started building normal lives with new homes, jobs, and families. Now they must fly cargo planes through Soviet airspace around the clock. They sleep in barns and muddy tents. Russian fighters shadow their aircraft. Anti-aircraft guns track them from below. They improvise everything, fighting exhaustion and hostile weather to deliver food and coal to desperate Berliners. The stakes could not be higher. If they fail, the Cold War turns hot.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, adventure, action, american-history
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: against-all-odds, based-on-true-events, heroic-sacrifice
Setting: America, Berlin, Soviet Union
Period: 1948
316 pages · Hardcover · Simon & Schuster