This writing project is more than fifteen years in the making. There are thousands of wartime stories that have never been recorded beyond a few pages in journals and diaries. In August of 1944, a seven-man aircrew was sent, with scores of Allied aircraft, to a target along the German coastline.
A Danish-Canadian friend was the catalyst for getting a manuscript into print. Research, interviews with surviving aircrew, countless meetings, visits to aerospace museums in Canada and the U.S., and a trip to Denmark and Germany provided the background for a work that has been our shared passion.
The aircrew is shot down, in the summer, over Denmark. Danish Underground members and ordinary citizens become the dominant players in the unfolding drama that plays out on the ground of this Nazi-occupied Kingdom. The real heroes of this story include men, women and children who are in constant danger of death, just for helping to move these airmen towards safety.
A lawyer writes the manuscript, but his Danish-Canadian friend provides the real depth and insight into the developing story. Without him, the project would surely have fizzled. The friend was, himself, a young boy during the Danish Occupation, the son of a leader of Underground cell known as Holger Danske.
The real appeal of this story is the bravery of school children, farmers, nurses and doctors, policeman, grandmothers, wives with children, sailors and - yes - Germans with a conscience. I look forward to the eventual publication of this work.
