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Into the Cold Blue

Jared Frederick author John Homan author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Regnery Publishing Inc

Published:4th Jul '24

Should be back in stock very soon

Into the Cold Blue cover

One of the last great memoirs of World War II, Into the Cold Blue is a riveting account of the air war over Europe, when hell was four miles above the earth.

A born daredevil, John Homan joined the Army Air Forces after Pearl Harbor. Three years later he was co-piloting a B-24 Liberator over Nazi Germany, raining death and destruction on the enemy. This first-person account of his harrowing adventures—flying through deadly skies filled with red-hot bursts of flak, watching airmen fall from the sky with parachutes aflame—will leave you staggered by the courage and grit of those young warriors.

Fighting the enemy in the air seemed the perfect way for Homan to channel his restless, energetic spirit in wartime, but he could never have imagined the horrors that awaited him in September 1944. Part of an airborne armada over Nazi-occupied Holland, his plane punched full of holes, his left tail shot away, a tire blown to bits, Homan wondered how he could survive his mission. The young lieutenant and his exhausted crewmates braced for a nearly hopeless emergency landing, while half a world away waited the sweetheart he thought he’d never see again.

With wit, warmth, and astonishing clarity, John Homan conveys the skill and heroism of the “Mighty Eighth” Air Force in the most perilous theater of history’s greatest air war.

Praise for Into the Cold Blue

“John Homan has gifted us with what will surely stand as one of the definitive eyewitness accounts  of the Second World War: a tale filled with nostalgia, romance, and unflinching examples of terror in aerial combat. A book that encompasses the whole of an exceedingly eventful life, Into the Cold Blue is an invaluable addition to the canon of World War II literature.”—Matthew Algeo, author of Last Team Standing: How the Steelers and the Eagles—“The Steagles”—Saved Pro Football During World War II

Into the Cold Blue achieves that perfect balance of intimacy and breadth of vision, the personal and the global, as it guides readers on a tour of the air war. John Homan’s truth-telling is delivered with candor on every page. Tales of missed targets, bad planning, failed equipment, sense- less waste, and varying acts of cowardice complement stories of sacrifice, heroic leadership, and grim determination. Anyone curious about life in a B-24 as it roared over occupied Europe must read this book.”—Todd DePastino, author of Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front

Into the Cold Blue introduces the world to John Homan, whose daring service with the U.S. Army Eighth Air Force is superbly told in his own words. Coming of age during the Depression, Homan rose to serve in what General Dwight Eisenhower called the ‘Great Crusade’ against fascism. This stirring memoir of war and sacrifice offers revealing glimpses of both past and present. In challenging readers to ‘straighten up and fly right,’ Homan underscores how we can serve our nation and each other.”—John Heckman, creator of The Tattooed Historian

“In the summer of 1944, Lieutenant John Homan soared into an unrelenting air war over Europe. For four months, at four miles high, Homan and comrades of the 489th Bomb Group endured a living hell. With brutal honesty and gripping narrative, Into the Cold Blue drops us inside the cramped cockpit of the Consolidated B-24 Liberator. Readers feel the jolt of bone-shaking flak bursts, hear the roar of predatory German fighters, share in the fright of emergency landings, and experience the heart-stopping sadness of sudden loss. Homan’s terrific memoir reminds us of the air war’s high cost and that Allied victory owed much to the flyboys who helped defeat the German war machine. Into the Cold Blue will go down as one of the all-time best reminiscences of the Mighty Eighth.”—Timothy J. Orr, coauthor of Never Call Me a Hero: A Legendary Dive-Bomber Pilot Remembers the Battle of Midway

ISBN: 9781684515158

Dimensions: 184mm x 140mm x 21mm

Weight: 381g

320 pages