One-Mission Man: 1 - Softcover

David Ririe; Roger W. Nielsen; Carolyn R. Nielsen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0982035594 ISBN 13: 9780982035597

Publisher: Teton Crest Publishing, 2011

Synopsis

After enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1942 and training diligently for months as a bombardier, David Ririe spent only one day in combat. On his first and last mission, his plane is shot down. Crashing on a military reserve outside Rostock, Germany, he is immediately seized by German soldiers. He is held in Stalag Luft 1, an isolated prisoner of war camp for officers along the Baltic coast in northern Germany. For the next 13 months, Ririe struggles to survive Nazi brutality. In One Mission Man, Ririe describes the patriotism of small-town America as it prepares for war, the training to become a B-17 bombardier, and the harsh reality of combat and capture by the enemy. Living in overcrowded, unheated barracks surrounded by armed guards and barbed wire, he survives on a daily ration of thin turnip soup and coarse brown bread, suffers the misery of wet winter weather in inadequate clothing, copes with unrelenting boredom, and repeatedly digging tunnels unsuccessfully to escape. One-Mission Man is divided chronologically into four major sections: Ririe's youth growing up in rural Idaho, his training in the Army Air Corps, his year of incarceration and liberation from Stalag Luft 1, his struggle to return to normal life. He speaks in an open and candid way about such poignant experiences as struggling to become a B-17 bombardier, nearly starving with 9,000 POWs and heart-rending disappointment after failing numerous escape attempts. The conclusions he draws illustrate the harrowing chaos that existed during the world s most brutal war.

Edition details

• Publisher: Teton Crest Publishing
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0982035594
• ISBN 13: 9780982035597
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240