Hell Above Earth: The Incredible True Story of an American WWII Bomber Commander and the Copilot Ordered to Kill Him
About this ebook
The US air battle over Nazi Germany in WWII was hell above earth. For bomber crews, every day they flew was like D-Day, exacting a terrible physical and emotional toll. Twenty-year-old US Captain Werner Goering, accepted this, even thrived on and welcomed the adrenaline rush. He was an exceptional pilot—and the nephew of Hermann Göring—leading member of the Nazi party and commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe.
The FBI and the American military would not prevent Werner from serving his American homeland, but neither would they risk the propaganda coup that his desertion or capture would represent for Nazi Germany. J. Edgar Hoover issued a top-secret order that if Captain Goering’s plane was downed for any reason over Nazi-occupied Europe, someone would be there in the cockpit to shoot Goering dead. FBI agents found a man capable of accomplishing the task in Jack Rencher, a tough, insular B-17 instructor who also happened to be one of the Army’s best pistol shots. That Jack and Werner became unlikely friends is just one more twist in one of the most incredible untold tales of WWII.
“A meticulously researched and brilliantly reconstructed tale of truth and treachery that’s as riveting as it is heart stopping.” —Providence Journal
“One of the greatest and most ironic surprises of World War Two . . . A riveting book, every bit as exciting and unusual as Operation Mincemeat, and demonstrating that there are still things we don’t know about WWII.” —Michael Korda, New York Times–bestselling author
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About the author
Stephen Frater was a staff writer and columnist for the New York Times subsidiary The Sarasota Herald-Tribune. His articles, biographical features and military themed nonfiction book reviews have been published nationwide. He is currently an adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Rhode Island's Harrington School of Communication and Media. He lives in Rhode Island and Florida.
