Tailspin

It’s so important that such personal histories as this be recorded and this is an unusual way of presenting such an account, weaving in a secondary story at the same time. The second layer takes this book beyond a social history to be a genuinely moving account of challenge and grief and how we come to terms with both.

This is a remarkable WW2 survival story. I learned lots of things about the men who fought the war.

This story follows Eugene "Gene" Moran, a farmer boy who wants to enlist in the US Army and fight Germans in the second World War. He becomes a tail gunner in a "Flying Fortress" bomber plane.

Shot down, he miraculously survives his fall, and then begins a very long adventure for Gene as a POW.

Gene's tale is very gripping, and John Armbruster, who was just a history teacher, did a very good job telling this tale. History was not one among my favorite classes in school, but I always was interested in learning stuff about the war.

This book is not only about Gene's story. It's also about the author's own battle, his wife's cancer. A very emotional story too.

Anyone who has researched World War II has likely heard about an airman who fell to earth in the severed tail of a B-17 and survived. Here is his story.
How he survived in a mystery. How he survived with a fractured skull is more amazing. Two Serbian doctors operated on his head in what couldn’t have been a very sophisticated infirmary at a POW camp.
The graphic descriptions of the days on a hell ship and the death march to camps out of the Russians’ reach are appalling.
Postwar, his emotional state seemed to be worse than his physical wounds. Drunkenness, the way he treated his wife. His refusal to talk about the war left his family with no idea what caused his moods.
This is actually a dual time account. Besides the biography and wartime experiences of Gene Moran, there is the author’s story of not feeling qualified to write a book and his ordeal with his wife’s cancer and death while he interviewed Gene.

Tailspin by John Armbruster is the incredible story of Gene Moran. This book is unique in that in telling Moran's story he also is living and telling the story of one of his life's darkest moments as well as interviewing and gathering data for Moran's story. Armbruster's wife is dying from cancer while he is learning of Moran's history. The story of Moran's journey from a dairy farm in Wisconsin to the last flight of the "Riki Tikki Tavi", his horrific capture and imprisonment, and finally his difficulties adjusting to normalcy upon his return is one you won't want to miss..It is a very real chronicle of the struggles of a man who sacrificed a great deal for his country and struggled on his journey back to the realities of life in America. His memory of life as a young man coming of age in our country's most challenging time, his training to be a tail gunner, his flight experiences, and his time as a P.O.W. are well told, well researched, and reveal a personal part of the history of America's triumphs and tragedies in the struggle to free Europe from Hitler's heavy hand. Thankfully Gene Moran was able to rise from the tragedies of his World War II experience and Armbruster was able to do so as well. Both stories are intertwined and the journey to telling the story is part of the story itself. Thanks to #NetGalley#Talspin for the opportunity to read and review this outstanding book.