FIGHTING THE NIGHT

An acclaimed author digs into his father’s service in World War II.

Like many sons of the Greatest Generation, Hendrickson, author of Plagued by Fire and Hemingway’s Boat, regrets not exploring his father’s story until after his death. He makes up for it in this detailed, vivid narrative, which benefits from intensive archival research and exhaustive interviews. His father, Joe Paul, was the third of nine children of a hardscrabble Kentucky sharecropper, and he was probably the most ambitious. He joined the Army Air Corps in 1937, trained as a mechanic, and quickly rose to crew chief. He yearned to attend flight school, and in 1942, a few months after getting married, he gained entrance. His highly specialized pilot training, which included work with the high-tech, radar-equipped P-61 Black Widow night fighter, required two years, and he and his family crisscrossed the country, often by car, an experience that exhausted his wife and young children. He was finally sent to the Pacific, arriving at Iwo Jima in March 1945, when the brutal land battle was almost over. Hendrickson delivers a lively account of the following six months. Joe Paul and his unit patrolled and attacked other islands but rarely encountered enemy fighters. Despite several scares, he emerged from the war largely unscathed, raised five children, and enjoyed a long career as a commercial airline pilot. Although he was a strict disciplinarian, his children loved him dearly. Aside from a few details about his family life, the text remains focused on Joe Paul’s wartime experiences. A skilled journalist, Hendrickson tracked down and interviewed the children, grandchildren, and cousins of other members of the unit to deliver biographies of other fliers, many of whom had only vague memories of his father.

An expert account of a father’s WWII experiences that gives his fellow airmen equal attention.