A fighter pilot in Buchenwald

The story of an American fighter pilot shot down over France

For 40 years, residents of the small towns south of the Canadian border, in the remote northwestern corner of the United States, welcomed a friendly, short, dark-haired man into their homes. He came to install and repair their heating boilers. Very few of them knew that this quiet and hardworking heating engineer was a true American hero.
Joseph Moser grew up on a small farm in Ferndale, Washington. At school, he dreamt of becoming a fighter pilot and flying the P-38 Lightning, the fastest and most advanced fighter aircraft of its time. He fulfilled his dream, was sent to Europe, survived 43 combat missions and received several awards for his outstanding skills in dive-bombing – combat actions that significantly contributed to the Allied war effort both before and after the invasion of Europe.
But on 13 August 1944, on his 44th combat mission, his dream was shattered. He was shot down and his life turned into a series of horrific experiences. It is little known that a small group of Allied pilots found themselves in Hitler's most diabolical system of human extermination. As “Terrorfliegers”, they were to be executed. They were taken in crowded cattle wagons to Buchenwald, the infamous Nazi concentration camp where tens of thousands of prisoners died as a result of cruel treatment, medical experiments, and starvation. Joe was saved just four days before his scheduled execution and spent another six months in various prisoner-of-war camps.
Only recently, after extensive research, has it been discovered who arranged for the Allied airmen to be moved from the concentration camp to a prisoner-of-war camp, almost certainly saving their lives. This information is published for the first time in the Czech edition of Joe's wartime experiences. In this narrative, you will fly with Joe on various dangerous ground-attack missions and bomber escorts. You will experience the challenging and sometimes amusing pilot training, the fear of a rookie pilot, and then the inhumanity of the SS, which was a part of life in Buchenwald.
It is a story of quiet and steady courage in the most difficult of times – courage fortified by faith, family, and a commitment to the ideals of freedom cherished by many of that great generation.