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Off We Go...Down In Flame

by Julius 'Al' Altvater

178 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0316; ISBN 1-55369-503-8; US$18.50, C$20.95, EUR15.00, £10.50

The story of a WWII Bombardier in the air over Europe and as a prisoner of war in Romania.

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about the book      about the author      reviews      sample excerpt      catalogue info

About the Book Off We Go...Down in Flame is the story of a WWII bombardier in the air over Europe as a prisoner of war in Romania. Among the many photographs is one of the author's aircraft, SHILAY-LEE, going down in flame over the Danube. He weaves a gripping story of his capture and imprisonment and the tedium and humor of prison life. One of the humorous episodes chronicles an ill-fated attempt, along with an Australian pilot, to escape from the prison. Almost a full year before the war's end, Altvater and approximately 1200 other Allied prisoners were dramatically rescued and returned to their bases in Italy. The author tells of his childhood in the Great Depression in New Jersey with immigrant parents: his father, a chemist from Germany, and his mother, a Jew from Hungary. To escape domestica strife, he walked lonely miles to the Newary airport to look at the airplanes. His coming of age years, following his father's death, are also a good read. This is no flag-waving book. There's no glory here. It tells the story of a badly burned bombardier, parachuting into a field in ememy territory, and finding the morphine styrette missing from his first-aid kit. Altvater concludes his story with his views, at age 82, on the "insanity of war."

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About the Author Born in the Bronx in 1920, "Al" Altvater spent his formative years in rural New Jersey. Seventeen at the time of his father's death during the Great Depression, he quit school and got a job in the infant TV industry assembling and installing television sets. Enlisting in what was then the "Army Air Corps," he volunteered for the Philippines, but was sent to Panama instead. He spent the war years in Panama, Texas, Nebraska, Idaho, Africa, Italy, and Romania. He retired from the military in 1964 with a rank of major. He subsequently had a second career as a social worker in Loas Angeles County "doing penance". Wherever he was stationed, Altvater took classes in local colleges and universities, graduating from the university of Philippines in 1963. Divorced in the late seventies, he moved to California's remote Mendocino Coast, where he remarried, and where he now resides with his wife Heidi, their dog Fritz and their cat Sweetie.

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Reviews

"It is an honest story of a man who lived through those extraordinary times when your life was not your own and love was laced with the poignant realization that how long you would be together and whether or not you would ever see you each other again was entirelyout of yoru control. What a read! Buy it. Read it. Enjoy it. You'll be glad you did!"

-from Douglas Roycroft, Mendocino Commentary

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Sample Excerpt

To be added

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Catalogue Information

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