Luck of the Draw: My Story of the Air War in Europe

Originally published in 2001, this finely wrought memoir captures the fortitude and resilience of the “greatest generation.” Atlanta native Murphy, who died in 2007, volunteered for the armed forces after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. As a navigator with the VIII Bomber Command, better known as the Mighty Eighth, Murphy flew daylight missions over Germany before U.S. fighter escorts could travel such distances; losses were so great that “a crew member’s chance of completing his combat tour was statistically zero,” Murphy writes. Murphy’s own luck ran out in October 1943, when his plane was shot down near Münster. Held prisoner at Stalag Luft III in Poland, Murphy viscerally describes “the uncertainty inherent in waking up each morning, day in and day out, week in and week out, year in and year out, in an enemy prison camp, never knowing when it would end,” and recounts the March 1944 escape of 76 airmen (later dramatized in the film The Great Escape) and its aftermath. Students of military history will appreciate Murphy’s detailed accounts of the Army Air Corp’s training program and a B-17 navigator’s responsibilities, while more casual readers will savor Murphy’s heartfelt tributes to comrades in arms. The result is a winning WWII story. (Feb.)