As a young band of brothers flies over German-occupied France, they come under heavy fire. Their B-17 is shot down and the airmen–stumbling through fields and villages–scatter across Europe. Some struggled to flee for safety. Others were captured immediately and imprisoned. Now, for the first time, their incredible story of grit, survival, and reunion is told.

In 1944, George Starks was just a nineteen-year-old kid from Florida when he and his high school buddies enlisted in the US military. They wanted to join the action of WWII. George was assigned to the Ninety-Second Bomb Group, in which the median age was twenty-two, and on his crew’s first bombing mission together received the most vulnerable spot of a B-17 mission configuration: low squadron, low group, flying number six in the bomber-box formation.

Airmen called George’s position the “Coffin Corner” because here exposure was most likely to draw hostile fire. Sure enough, George’s plane was shot down by a German Fw 190, and he jumped at 25,000 feet for the “first and only time,” as he tells the story. He landed near Vitry-en-Perthois to begin a 300-mile trek through the dangers of war-torn France towards the freedom of neutral Switzerland.

Through waist-deep snow, seering exhaustion, and close encounters with Nazis, George repeated to himself the mantra “just one more day.” He battled to keep walking. His comrades were scattered all across Europe and experienced places as formidable as German POW camps and as hospitable as Spain, each crew member always wondering about the fate of the others.

After the war, George made two vows: he would never lose touch with his men again and one day would attempt to thank those who had risked their lives to save his. Despite passage of time and demands of career and family, he accomplished both. He reunited with his crew and then twenty-five years later, returned to France to locate as many as he could of the brave souls who had helped him evade the enemy.

Join George as he retraces his steps to freedom and discover the amazing stories of sacrifice and survival and how ten young American boys plus their French helpers became heroes.

The United States first Special Forces unit in World War II were known as Marine Raiders. As one Raider explained, Raiders learned a deadly proficiency with the bayonet, they learned to use knives in hand-to-hand combat, and they learned to throw them with the infallible accuracy of vaudeville experts. They were taught to maneuver as well at night as by day, as well in brush as in open country, as well on the flat as in the hills. They learned camouflage and how to climb up and hide in trees. Nothing that would make them superior to any possible foe was overlooked. They learned everything they had to know to defeat their enemies, and they learned it well. With original interviews and never-before-published letters, diaries, and notes, historian and bestselling author Carole Avriett brings the true stories of four WWII Marine Raiders to life: – Lee Minier, 1st Battalion, KIA – Kenneth “Mudhole” Merrill, 2nd Battalion, died Veterans Day, 12 Nov. 2018 – Col. Archibald Rackerby, 3rd Battalion, living – Edwin “The Swede” Blomberg, 4th Battalion, living Marine Raiders gives a gripping account of what it took to become a member of the elite battalions known as Raiders and how they survived their desperate fight in the South Pacific.

In 1965, Col. Thomas “Jerry” Curtis’s helicopter was shot down over North Vietnam. He was immediately captured and spent 7 and a half years confined in a filthy 5′ x 7′ cell at the notorious Hanoi prison camp. Thousands of miles from home and unable to communicate with his wife and children, Jerry endured months of solitary confinement, suffocating heat, freezing cold, grueling physical and psychological torture, constant hunger, and unimaginable mental duress. And yet, time and again, the Light that darkness cannot overcome became his beacon of hope. Now, for the first time, Jerry shares the full story of his 2,703 days in captivity and what he learned about faith, hope, and the indomitable power of the human spirit.