Into the Cold Blue: My World War II Journeys with the Mighty Eighth Air Force

One of the last great memoirs of World War II, Into the Cold Blue is a riveting account of the air war over Europe, when hell was four miles above the earth. A born daredevil, John Homan joined the Army Air Forces after the Pearl Harbor attack. By 1944, he was co-piloting a B-24 Liberator over Nazi Germany, raining death and destruction on the enemy. This first-person account of his harrowing missions—chronicling deadly flights through skies of red-hot flak bursts and airmen bailing out with parachutes aflame—will leave readers staggered by the determination and grit of World War II aviators. Fighting a fierce enemy in the air seemed the perfect way for Homan to channel his restless, energetic spirit in wartime, but he could never have imagined the horrors that awaited him. During a vast operation over Nazi-occupied Holland in September 1944, his plane was punched full of holes, its left tail shot away, and a tire blown to bits. Homan wondered how he could possibly survive. The young lieutenant and his exhausted crewmates braced for a nearly hopeless emergency landing. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, waited the sweetheart he thought he’d never see again. With wit, warmth, and astonishing clarity, John Homan conveys the skill and heroism of the “Mighty Eighth” Air Force in the most perilous theater of history’s greatest air war.

About the Author :
John F. Homan has had, throughout his life, what he calls "a fair amount of luck." Born the son of British immigrants in Maine, he came of age during the Great Depression and enlisted in the Army Air Forces during World War II. A recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross, he flew thirty-four combat missions over Europe. After the war, he married his childhood sweetheart and began a decades-long career in industrial manufacturing. In his one hundredth year, John still enjoys family, friends, partying, poker, and eighteen-year-old whiskey. Jared Frederick is the author and co-author of numerous books, including Dispatches of D-Day, Hang Tough, and Fierce Valor. He has appeared on PBS, C-SPAN, and Turner Classic Movies. A former park ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park, Frederick is the host of Reel History on YouTube and is an assistant teaching professor of history at Penn State Altoona. Learn more at www.jaredfrederick.com

Review :
Praise for Into the Cold Blue “John Homan has gifted us with what will surely stand as one of the definitive eyewitness accounts  of the Second World War: a tale filled with nostalgia, romance, and unflinching examples of terror in aerial combat. A book that encompasses the whole of an exceedingly eventful life, Into the Cold Blue is an invaluable addition to the canon of World War II literature.”—Matthew Algeo, author of Last Team Standing: How the Steelers and the Eagles—“The Steagles”—Saved Pro Football During World War II “Into the Cold Blue achieves that perfect balance of intimacy and breadth of vision, the personal and the global, as it guides readers on a tour of the air war. John Homan’s truth-telling is delivered with candor on every page. Tales of missed targets, bad planning, failed equipment, sense- less waste, and varying acts of cowardice complement stories of sacrifice, heroic leadership, and grim determination. Anyone curious about life in a B-24 as it roared over occupied Europe must read this book.”—Todd DePastino, author of Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front “Into the Cold Blue introduces the world to John Homan, whose daring service with the U.S. Army Eighth Air Force is superbly told in his own words. Coming of age during the Depression, Homan rose to serve in what General Dwight Eisenhower called the ‘Great Crusade’ against fascism. This stirring memoir of war and sacrifice offers revealing glimpses of both past and present. In challenging readers to ‘straighten up and fly right,’ Homan underscores how we can serve our nation and each other.”—John Heckman, creator of The Tattooed Historian “In the summer of 1944, Lieutenant John Homan soared into an unrelenting air war over Europe. For four months, at four miles high, Homan and comrades of the 489th Bomb Group endured a living hell. With brutal honesty and gripping narrative, Into the Cold Blue drops us inside the cramped cockpit of the Consolidated B-24 Liberator. Readers feel the jolt of bone-shaking flak bursts, hear the roar of predatory German fighters, share in the fright of emergency landings, and experience the heart-stopping sadness of sudden loss. Homan’s terrific memoir reminds us of the air war’s high cost and that Allied victory owed much to the flyboys who helped defeat the German war machine. Into the Cold Blue will go down as one of the all-time best reminiscences of the Mighty Eighth.”—Timothy J. Orr, coauthor of Never Call Me a Hero: A Legendary Dive-Bomber Pilot Remembers the Battle of Midway