1911-1944

Examines the life of female World War II pilot Gertrude "Tommy" Tompkins, the only one of thirty-eight confirmed or presumed dead "WASPs," female pilots serving to transport planes across the country so they could be shipped out to either the Pacific or European theaters of the war, whose body is still unfound. Tracks Gertrude's life from her early struggles with a stutter and the social shame that came with it, her marriage to a pilot that ended with his death in Holland, her decision to become a pilot, and her last-known location.

The author was on his second World War II mission as a top-turret gunner when his plane was shot down in 1943. He was one of only two men on the plane to escape immediate death or capture. He was able to run from the plane wreck and knock on the door of an isolated farmhouse whose owners, fortunately, had a firm connection to the underground French Resistance group, Morhange, and its founder, Marcel Taillandier. Meyerowitz's escape to freedom was hair-raising and included a masquerade as a deaf-mute, a periolous trek over the Pyrenees, and a voyage aboard a fishing boat with U-boats below and Luftwaffe fighters above.

The author recalls the wartime experiences of his father who volunteered for the army, landed on Omaha Beach in 1944, and was killed near St. Lo by a sniper's bullet while attending a wounded soldier.