The Navigator's Letter

 USA TODAY Bestseller 

“The Navigator's Letter captured the tenor of the times. It took me back, reminding me of what went on. An honest and powerful portrayal."  ~Brig Gen Richard ‘Shotgun 1’ Baughn, WWII P-51 fighter pilot 

“it's terrific … gripping, timely, and easy on the eye.” ~Donald L. Miller, author of Masters of the Air

In modern warfare, “no other item is more essential than oil”  and Ploesti lay at the core of the German oil supply.

           ~AFHRA (6/15/44)

Crippling the Nazi war machine meant striking at its heart: oil. The target was Ploesti, Romania—a vast, heavily fortified oil complex supplying high-octane fuel that powered Hitler’s tanks, trucks, and planes. Even Churchill and FDR had a hand in the planning.  

On paper, the idea was brilliant. 

In execution, it was near suicidal.

On August 1, 1943, the U.S. launched Operation Tidal Wave — a daring, low-level bombing raid — some 1,700 airmen and 167 B-24 bombers flew straight into hell that day—54 aircraft went down and 532 airmen were lost. Among the missing was Capt. John B. White, Jr., a young navigator from Hillsboro, IL. 

With hope on the family's side—a handful of parachutes had been seen from his falling ship. John B.’s friend, Lt. Robert 'Bob' Cress, also a B-24 navigator from Hillsboro, set out to uncover what had happened to him. 

But on May 31, 1944, during a high-altitude bombing raid over Ploesti, Bob’s plane was shot down—now, two friends from the same small town went missing over the same dreaded target.

The Navigator’s Letter tells the extraordinary true story of two friends from the same small Illinois town whose lives became intertwined in this historic campaign. They joined the U.S. Army Air Corps, became navigators, and flew B-24 Liberators over Europe—until, through uncanny coincidence, each was shot down over Ploesti and declared missing in action. Bound by duty—and by the same woman, Polley—their shared experiences shaped the course of their lives.

Told through the voices of the two airmen, the story chronicles the U.S. campaign to destroy the Ploesti oil fields from the first-ever zero-altitude air raid through multiple high-altitude bombing missions before culminating with Operation Reunion, the largest evacuation by air in history repatriating 1,162 POWs as the Tuskegee Airmen flew cover over the entire operation.

Follow along as John B. and Bob defy the odds each time they climbed into a bomber. High above enemy territory, tethered to life-sustaining oxygen lines, they fought for survival against relentless dangers: freezing temperatures in an open fuselage that could drop to minus sixty; explosive flak timed precisely to the bombers' altitude; enemy fighter planes shooting to kill; fighting fires that raged onboard; and seeing friends shot down before their eyes—harrowing reminders of their own mortality.

While the book is rich with daring exploits of airmen, it ultimately unfolds as a story shaped by luck and fate, defined by courage and sacrifice, driven by duty with a thread of love woven throughout the narrative, in the form of family bonds and a quiet, unrequited longing amid the chaos of war.

Meticulously researched—including from the National Archives, both American and German—and interwoven with wartime letters and a POW diary, the two navigators’ voices echo throughout the narrative—raw, real, and unforgettable.

(Hachette /Union Square)