Get Free Shipping on orders over $79
Midnight Flyboys : The American Bomber Crews and Allied Secret Agents Who Aided the French Resistance in World War II - Bruce Henderson

Midnight Flyboys

The American Bomber Crews and Allied Secret Agents Who Aided the French Resistance in World War II

By: Bruce Henderson

Hardcover | 11 November 2025

At a Glance

Hardcover


RRP $59.99

$40.99

32%OFF

or 4 interest-free payments of $10.25 with

 or 

Ships in 10 to 15 business days

<b Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The untold history of a top-secret operation in the run-up to D-Day in which American flyers and Allied spies carried out some of the most daring cloak-and-dagger operations of World War II.

In 1943, the OSS—precursor to the CIA—came up with a plan to increase its support to the French resistance forces that were fighting the Nazis. To start, the OSS recruited some of the best American bomber pilots and crews to a secret airfield twenty miles west of London and briefed them on the intended mission. Given a choice to stay or leave, every airman volunteered for what became known as Operation Carpetbagger.<br Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /> <br Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /> Their dangerous plan called for a new kind of flying: taking their B-24 Liberator bombers in the middle of the night across the English Channel and down to extremely low altitudes in Nazi-occupied France to find drop zones in dark fields. On the ground, resistance members waited to receive steel containers filled with everything from rifles and hand grenades to medicine and bicycle tires. Some nights, the flyers also dropped Allied secret agents by parachute to assist the French partisans.<br Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /> <br Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /> Though their story remained classified for more than fifty years, the Carpetbaggers ultimately received a Presidential Unit Citation from the US military, which declared: “it is safe to say that no group of this size has made a greater contribution to the war effort.” Along with other members of the wartime OSS, they were also awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.<br Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /> <br Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /> Based on exclusive research and interviews, the definitive story of these heroic flyers—and of the brave secret agents and resistance leaders they aided—can now be told. Written in Bruce Henderson’s “spellbinding” (<i Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">USA TODAY) prose, <i Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Midnight Flyboys is an astonishing tale of patriotism, courage, and sacrifice.

More in Second World War

Keeper of Lost Children - Sadeqa Johnson

RRP $34.99

$28.75

18%
OFF
Battle of the Arctic : The Maritime Epic of World War Two - Hugh Sebag Montefiore
Kokoda : Updated Edition - Peter FitzSimons

RRP $39.99

$31.75

21%
OFF
Man's Search For Meaning - Viktor E Frankl

RRP $16.99

$14.75

13%
OFF
Blitzed : Drugs in Nazi Germany - Norman Ohler

RRP $26.99

$22.99

15%
OFF
The Happiest Man on Earth - Eddie Jaku

RRP $32.99

$26.99

18%
OFF
Stalin's Wine Cellar - John Baker

RRP $26.99

$22.99

15%
OFF
Code of Silence : How Australian Women Helped Win the War - Diana Thorp
Rhineland : Hitler's Last Defence, 1944-45 - Anthony Tucker-Jones

RRP $49.99

$38.75

22%
OFF
Night : Penguin Modern Classics - Elie Wiesel

RRP $26.99

$22.99

15%
OFF
The Diary of a Young Girl : 70th Anniversary Edition - Anne Frank
Miracle : The Boys Who Escaped the Gas Chamber in Auschwitz - Michael Calvin