The Navigator's Letter

A USA Today bestseller, THE NAVIGATOR'S LETTER by JAN CRESS DONDI, reveals one of the most audacious and overlooked World War II stories. It chronicles a dangerous U.S. Army Air Force campaign through the voices of two airmen bound by duty—and one woman, forming a deeply human narrative. A gripping blend of military history and war biography, it captures brotherhood, love, and sacrifice. One of the riskiest air raids of World War II occurred on August 1, 1943, over the oil fields at Ploesti, Romania—Nazi Germany's primary fuel source. The Allies believed that the destruction of Hitler's oil refineries would shorten the war. Using an untested strategy, it was worth the gamble, but the mission did not go according to plan—with 53 aircraft and 532 crewmen lost, it was the costliest US air raid of the war. A true story, The Navigator's Letter is a tale of uncanny coincidences: two friends from the same small Illinois town; both joined the Air Corps; both became navigators; both were assigned to B-24 Liberators; both flew missions over Europe; both of their planes were forced down over Ploesti; and both went missing-in-action. Jan Cress Dondi tells the intertwined war stories of her uncle, John B. White, a hometown lawyer with political aspirations, and her father, Bob Cress, a college student with roots in dairy farming, captured in hundreds of personal letters, journal entries, family scrapbooks, and the author's extensive archival research. At what started with Operation Tidal Wave, the first-ever zero-altitude air raid, this gripping account of combat and sacrifice shows the impact of war on families and the complexities of loyalty, sacrifice, loss, and love.