January 1, 2026 • 18 mins
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.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.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.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" (USA TODAY) prose, Midnight Flyboys is an astonishing tale of patriotism, courage, and sacrifice.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I guess it's just a radio thing. One thought per break.
Why have only one podcast when there are fifty thousand
things moving around us all at one time? Why are
you shoving that into a potato bag aro? Dot net
A R R O E dot net Seventeen unbelievable podcasts
are waiting for you. How are you doing, mister Michael,
I am well. I am sitting with a man who's
(00:21):
sitting in Menlo Park.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
And has a lot to talk about. Good.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I like people who have a lot to talk about
because it probably started with his fingers and imagination first
in a book. And Bruce, I gotta thank you for
doing this because I am such a huge person in
the way. If we don't remember our past and honor
those who took those footsteps and change, challenge and everything
(00:46):
else that's involved in life, we are going to do
something that we should never do, and that is forget.
And I'm so so I just love this idea that
you've put together Midnight fly Boys.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Well, thank you, and I love what you say about
that I might use that sometimes.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Please do. My mother lost two brothers in the Korean War.
They were ones up there in the air, and today
inside my heart because my mother believed in it. They
are still very much alive. My mother never stopped and
it's just that's what opened up my eyes into men
and women who go up into the air or have
anything to do with it, even building the plane or
(01:20):
repairing it.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah. Well, for me, I was about ten or twelve
years old when I opened a suitcase at my grandmother's
house and found inside all kinds of pilot paraphernalia about
a hundred letters that my late uncle, who I never knew,
but he was a P fifty one Mustang pilot during
the war, was went down over the North Sea, but
(01:45):
I only heard stories about him. And so from that
moment on, I've had some kind of love for and
interest in pilots and aviation. And this is I'm going
on thirty books now, but this is the first one
I've read. And it isn't that funny about about pilots
and aviators. And I don't know why it took me
so long, but I love that I have this book now,
(02:08):
Midnight Flyboys, and that I've uncovered these stories to tell.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Well, don't you think it's because maybe time itself was
waiting for the right time, Because I mean in today,
in these days of drones and things, somebody still has
to fly them, and somebody still has to be able
to go up and do things. And if we don't
remind the younger generation as well as the middle aged people,
that there was a history before this moment, then they're
just going to think that all these drones have always
been with us since day one.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, that's true. And you know, and also in World
War Two, we have, you know, a generation that really
answered the call and fought a war that had to
be won. I mean, it was very black and white,
much more so than some of the well in my
own war Vietnam and some of the other wars that
have come since, and you know, everybody was pulling in
(02:56):
the same direction. And my grandmother talked about her victory garden,
and so I'd love that generation that and I'm so
pleased that this book is being published on Veterans Day.
And not to forget ever, their service and their sacrifice.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
You know, one of the things that you put a
lot of focus on when it comes to those airplanes,
because I guess I've been so drawn into these documentaries
on TV that that World War Two to me was
that war where we got to put men and women
into the air because even though that it may have
been around during World War One, to me, it was
more prevalent in World War Two. And I'm drawn to
(03:33):
that in a huge way.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yes, have you ever been in any of these old airplanes? Yes?
I have, Yeah, and they're so closter phobus, Yes, And
I was it a B twenty four, which is the
type of plane that these carpetbaggers flew. And just the
idea of getting out of that if the plane is
going down and you you're trying to parachute, how you
(03:57):
make your way down those tight you know, walk not
even walkways, crawl spaces when the plane is on its
side or upside down. And I mean, it's just unbelievable,
you know that that they flew in those flying coffin.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, you know, I love me some Tom Cruise, But
I don't think that he's showing respect to the airplanes.
I mean, because I mean, I mean, I mean, sure
I would love to get out there and hang around
and fly around and stuff like that, but I don't
think that's the way that it really happened.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Well, it's certainly not the way it happened in World
War Two. No, but it was a different kind of flying,
and and how they pulled it off. The these B
twenty fours that they were flying in over over France,
they they weren't made to fly that low, that slow,
and they were flying three four hundred feet off the
ground at night and to drop these supplies by parachute
(04:53):
and these agents. And you know, that's too low and
too slow for one of those big four engine bombers.
And if they weren't shot down by the enemy they were,
they would crash into a hillside or even clip the
trees and go in. And so it was it was
a very fine edge margin of error that they could have.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Will you dive into that when you say that every
one of these volunteers went into this expecting an outcome
that they couldn't predict. I mean you you really bring
that forward.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, I love that opening scene and it really did
happen that way. About one hundred pilots and their crewmen
in a briefing room and being told and just very
very quickly, you're going to be if you go for
this volunteer, stay in this room, you'll be flying low,
slow and dangerous and in ways that you were not
(05:46):
trained to fly. If you don't want to do this,
get up and leave now, and you'll be there won't
be any mark against your record. And I'll give you
five minutes. And for five minutes they sat around and
looked at each other, and not a single guy got up. Now.
I talked to one of them in the room them
and he said, you know, honestly, if one guy had
gotten up, I don't know, maybe a few others would have,
but nobody wanted to be the first. And so there
(06:09):
they were, you know, volunteering for this, for unknown and
very dangerous missions. See.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I find them to be extremely inspiring and inspirational in
the way of they went into the fire where the
rest of us would run away from the fire.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Well, that's true. And boy, and whether you're whether you're
in a military pilot or a Navy pilot or a
New York City fireman, those that run into the fire
or we got to we couldn't. We couldn't live without him,
you know.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
And I think that where the Chaker part was, because
that's exactly because my grandfather fought in World War One,
my father was in World War Two, my brother in Vietnam,
and the thing is is that then when I when
I take up martial arts, and they say, well that
the true martial artists, they're supposed to walk away from
the trouble. And I'm going, that's not what my dad said,
That's not what my grandfather used to sit down with
me too. And I think sometimes that we're trained that
(07:04):
walk around the trouble, don't get involved in the trouble.
And it's like, wow, that the men and women that's
you know, that have saved this nation walk into that
and get the job done.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Doesn't mean that they weren't afraid. And it uh and
and and you know, it means that you have understand
you have a duty and a commitment and a mission
and and and these guys had that, and it was
about it was about winning this war and coming back home,
and that's that was their goal. It wasn't any bigger
(07:38):
geopolitical thing than that. Of course, there was there were
evil empires around the world, two of them that had
to be defeated for them to be able to do that,
and that was their commitment. And later on some of
these crews were actually would have been able to rotate home,
and some of them did. But if some of them said, no,
(08:00):
we're still going to stay here because this is still
going on, and this is our job and we know
how to do it better than some new crew coming in,
so we'll stay. Well, there you go. That's commitment, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Please do not move. There's more with Bruce Henderson coming
up next the name of his book Midnight fly Boys,
the American bomber crews and Allied secret agents who aided
the French resistance in World War Two. We are back
with Bruce Henderson. When you write about, you know, flying
across the English Channel. I always sit there and wonder
(08:34):
that how that changed in so many people's eyes when
all of a sudden the swimmers began swimming across the
English Channel. Because I thought, all of a sudden it
shortened that journey those men and women that sat there
and fought during World War one and two with the
English Channel, because it looked bigger than life until the
swimmers stepped into the history books.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, I'll say that well. And I opened the book
with how about just flying a plane across the Atlantic?
Speaker 1 (09:01):
How about that?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
I mean that in itself in those days, with the
kind of equipment they had, and you know, I started
with it, you know, from the point of view of
the navigator who's responsible for finding the coast of Africa
when they're flying over from they drop down to South
America to go to southern crossing across the Atlantic instead
of the winter crossing the northern crossing during the winter.
(09:26):
But the tension of that, is Africa going to be
where I think it is? And did I point us
the right direction all night? Or are we going to
be in the middle of the ocean circling around? And
I mean just that in itself is a feat.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Wow, did you mean to scare us in chapter number one?
Where the hell are we? Because I mean there's a
side of me that gets it. But at the same time,
like you just said, you don't know where you are,
You're you're relying on hope and trust.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah, And that navigator really hoped that he hit it
on the nail, But he also realized that he'd be
responsible for the lives of nine other men if he
if he'd messed up. And I think that's also something
that we should keep in mind about these these kind
of these kind of veterans. Was it was always very
important and I don't care it wasn't just their war,
but it was any war. They're really they're there, they
(10:17):
really want to They understand that anything they do that
could save the life of their buddy is of paramount
importance and more important than honestly killing the enemy is
not killing your own, you know, your own crew man.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
The I would love to see the research on how
many people they pick up the book and they're paging
through the opening, the opening parts of it, and all
of a sudden they come across the photo of your uncle,
Lieutenant Robert G. Silva. I can't quit looking at that photo.
And I'm not the only one who looks at that
photo and and tries to pull themselves into it. And
I want to just remind those listeners go to the paragraphs,
(11:01):
because that's how you're getting into that photograph.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
You know what's really amazing when I tell you this,
You know, we've had I've had grew up with photos
of my uncle Bob, you know, and you know, just
and yet it wasn't until I was doing the research
on this book that I found that photo. And the
other photos we had of him were before he went overseas,
you know, smiling and looking very young and all of that.
(11:27):
When I found this, it sent a chill down my
back because this was him climbing out of the cockpit
of his P fifty one with the kind of with
a kind of strain and drain in his face that
I had not seen before. And he was obviously just
coming back from a mission, and he was in England,
and it was at the airfield that within a few
(11:49):
weeks he would fly off on his final mission and
never come back. And that photo just I mean, I
actually had another photo for that page in that book,
and I and when I found this photo, I exchanged
it because this is the real deal. This is him
at war. Yep. Wow.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
So now I know how my mother and grandmother were
when it came to the photos, how protective they were,
and how we could not put our hands on them.
How did you get your hands on these photos? What
was the magic word that you had to do in
order to get into that book?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Well, the suitcase that I opened at my grandmother's place
eventually became mine, Oh my god. And you know, when
she passed, I was the family historian. And so I've
had that suitcase all these years, and every letter in
it every six months or year over the last for
(12:46):
years have have read again and to try to piece together,
you know, who my uncle was, and try to understand
who it was. And that has really brought me into
these World War two books in a very personal way.
It's not just about getting a book deal for me.
It's about really telling the lives of these folks who
(13:07):
were alive, are and aren't now, but trying to understand
them more. What did they think, what did they feel,
what did they go through? What were they willing to do?
Speaker 1 (13:17):
You know, the one thing that's missing from your book,
because you've talked about the suitcase and we're not the
only ones that have done that, opened up the suitcase
or the box. The one thing that's missing from the
pages the scent of when we open the suitcase and
all of a sudden, that scent comes up because you
know that you've stepped into history, and history comes with
a smell, but you never forget it because all of
(13:38):
a sudden, you're touching it, you're feeling it, you're smelling it,
you're envisioning yourself in it, and it's like that is
such a moment. And then for you to write about
the situation about the men and women all of a sudden,
we are in that moment. You're like a time machine
with this.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Well, thank you. I mean, I hope that is the case,
because I'm certainly there when I'm writing it, yep, and
I'm trying to I'm trying to bring the reader into
it too, and very as personally as in a personal way,
I hope for them too.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Do you feel like that you found the needle to
the haystack because you're uncovering things that fifty years in
the hiding and all of a sudden here comes Bruce.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yeah. And you know what, I love this book and
it brought me into back into pilots. Why did it
take me so long to write about pilots and Airman
when I had this wet obsession since I was a kid.
And now I've I've so enjoyed doing Midnight fly Boys
that I've decided and drum roll pleased, because I don't
think I've ever felt ready to do it. The next
(14:39):
book's going to be about my uncle and the group
of fighter pilots that he flew with, which it turned
out turns out to be a legendary group of pioneer
Mustang pilots. And so that's going to be my next one,
and as I've told my wife, this would be a
nice swan song if it was going to be my
last book. Of course, she pointed out to me, I've
(15:00):
said that for my last six books.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah. So, now, how were you able to uncover some
secret operations about D Day? Because I mean we to me,
the knowledge of D Day is what we see on
TV and what historians on TV and or in magazines
are willing to share with us. But you give us
a completely different angle when it comes to the secret operations.
(15:24):
Now you've got my attention.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Yeah, well, you know, they were all secret and classified,
and nobody saw them until about well for fifty years
after the war. And that doesn't mean that they suddenly
all became we're all in one place that you could
walk into a room and start reading them. You do
have to find where they're at, what archives they're in,
(15:49):
those kinds of official reports. I mean, that's that's the
kind of stuff we do, that's behind the scenes that
you know, I don't really particularly share with the because
it's it's not that exciting, but it certainly are. I
have the rabbit holes that I need to go down to,
uh to get the mission reports to get the missing
(16:11):
aircraft reports, Who was on that plane, how old are they,
where they and what home down were they from? And
that's a start. And then I try to reach out
and find there any any sort of if any of
them that were still alive, or their families, more so
now the families. And that's also very interesting when I
(16:33):
reach out to families who and sometimes it's the second
or third generation removed, but some other people have suitcases
in the attic too. I found they do, and uh,
you know, and they love that. They're now talking about
their grandfather they never knew but always wanted to know
more about. And oh, we do have some stuff around here.
(16:55):
Can we share that with you? And that's what I
look for, And that's that's really what that's the fuel
that drives.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Me, mister Bruce. Right here in front of me is
a desk that was on a World War II warship
that was owned by a captain. And on this laptop desk,
there's a letter in it and explaining to dear future reader.
And this desk is in front of me every single day.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Let me guess, is it gray metal?
Speaker 1 (17:21):
It's brown with metal. It looks like it's brass on
the outside. In fact, I'm looking at it right now.
I mean it is built like a monster, is what
it is. And of course it's got the leather on
the inside, but it's all worn out because of all
these years. But when you hold that letter in your
hand and you see his physical handwriting, they don't teach
people how to write like that anymore.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
They don't.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
They don't.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
No, you're absolutely right. They don't wow people to write
with their index fingers.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Isn't that the darn truth? Where can people go to
find out more about what you're doing? Because I love
where your heart is and history needs you in the future.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Well, thank you, And my website is Bruce Henderson books
dot com and certainly in Midnight. Four Boys is also
available wherever books are sold, whether it's your local independent
or Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
You got to come back to this show anytime in
the future, because you know, it was Colonel Oliver North
that told me I am not a radio broadcaster until
I start telling the stories of the men and women
that fought for this nation. And you are now part
of that circle, sir.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Thank you. I'll come back with my book about my uncle.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Let's do it. Let's do it. I want to hear
your uncle's stories. Thank you, Rol, you'd be brilliant today.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Okay, thank you
I guess it's just a radio thing. One thought per break.
Why have only one podcast when there are fifty thousand
things moving around us all at one time? Why are
you shoving that into a potato bag aro? Dot net
A R R O E dot net Seventeen unbelievable podcasts
are waiting for you. How are you doing, mister Michael,
I am well. I am sitting with a man who's
(00:21):
sitting in Menlo Park.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
And has a lot to talk about. Good.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I like people who have a lot to talk about
because it probably started with his fingers and imagination first
in a book. And Bruce, I gotta thank you for
doing this because I am such a huge person in
the way. If we don't remember our past and honor
those who took those footsteps and change, challenge and everything
(00:46):
else that's involved in life, we are going to do
something that we should never do, and that is forget.
And I'm so so I just love this idea that
you've put together Midnight fly Boys.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Well, thank you, and I love what you say about
that I might use that sometimes.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Please do. My mother lost two brothers in the Korean War.
They were ones up there in the air, and today
inside my heart because my mother believed in it. They
are still very much alive. My mother never stopped and
it's just that's what opened up my eyes into men
and women who go up into the air or have
anything to do with it, even building the plane or
(01:20):
repairing it.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah. Well, for me, I was about ten or twelve
years old when I opened a suitcase at my grandmother's
house and found inside all kinds of pilot paraphernalia about
a hundred letters that my late uncle, who I never knew,
but he was a P fifty one Mustang pilot during
the war, was went down over the North Sea, but
(01:45):
I only heard stories about him. And so from that
moment on, I've had some kind of love for and
interest in pilots and aviation. And this is I'm going
on thirty books now, but this is the first one
I've read. And it isn't that funny about about pilots
and aviators. And I don't know why it took me
so long, but I love that I have this book now,
(02:08):
Midnight Flyboys, and that I've uncovered these stories to tell.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Well, don't you think it's because maybe time itself was
waiting for the right time, Because I mean in today,
in these days of drones and things, somebody still has
to fly them, and somebody still has to be able
to go up and do things. And if we don't
remind the younger generation as well as the middle aged people,
that there was a history before this moment, then they're
just going to think that all these drones have always
been with us since day one.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, that's true. And you know, and also in World
War Two, we have, you know, a generation that really
answered the call and fought a war that had to
be won. I mean, it was very black and white,
much more so than some of the well in my
own war Vietnam and some of the other wars that
have come since, and you know, everybody was pulling in
(02:56):
the same direction. And my grandmother talked about her victory garden,
and so I'd love that generation that and I'm so
pleased that this book is being published on Veterans Day.
And not to forget ever, their service and their sacrifice.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
You know, one of the things that you put a
lot of focus on when it comes to those airplanes,
because I guess I've been so drawn into these documentaries
on TV that that World War Two to me was
that war where we got to put men and women
into the air because even though that it may have
been around during World War One, to me, it was
more prevalent in World War Two. And I'm drawn to
(03:33):
that in a huge way.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yes, have you ever been in any of these old airplanes? Yes?
I have, Yeah, and they're so closter phobus, Yes, And
I was it a B twenty four, which is the
type of plane that these carpetbaggers flew. And just the
idea of getting out of that if the plane is
going down and you you're trying to parachute, how you
(03:57):
make your way down those tight you know, walk not
even walkways, crawl spaces when the plane is on its
side or upside down. And I mean, it's just unbelievable,
you know that that they flew in those flying coffin.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, you know, I love me some Tom Cruise, But
I don't think that he's showing respect to the airplanes.
I mean, because I mean, I mean, I mean, sure
I would love to get out there and hang around
and fly around and stuff like that, but I don't
think that's the way that it really happened.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Well, it's certainly not the way it happened in World
War Two. No, but it was a different kind of flying,
and and how they pulled it off. The these B
twenty fours that they were flying in over over France,
they they weren't made to fly that low, that slow,
and they were flying three four hundred feet off the
ground at night and to drop these supplies by parachute
(04:53):
and these agents. And you know, that's too low and
too slow for one of those big four engine bombers.
And if they weren't shot down by the enemy they were,
they would crash into a hillside or even clip the
trees and go in. And so it was it was
a very fine edge margin of error that they could have.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Will you dive into that when you say that every
one of these volunteers went into this expecting an outcome
that they couldn't predict. I mean you you really bring
that forward.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, I love that opening scene and it really did
happen that way. About one hundred pilots and their crewmen
in a briefing room and being told and just very
very quickly, you're going to be if you go for
this volunteer, stay in this room, you'll be flying low,
slow and dangerous and in ways that you were not
(05:46):
trained to fly. If you don't want to do this,
get up and leave now, and you'll be there won't
be any mark against your record. And I'll give you
five minutes. And for five minutes they sat around and
looked at each other, and not a single guy got up. Now.
I talked to one of them in the room them
and he said, you know, honestly, if one guy had
gotten up, I don't know, maybe a few others would have,
but nobody wanted to be the first. And so there
(06:09):
they were, you know, volunteering for this, for unknown and
very dangerous missions. See.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I find them to be extremely inspiring and inspirational in
the way of they went into the fire where the
rest of us would run away from the fire.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Well, that's true. And boy, and whether you're whether you're
in a military pilot or a Navy pilot or a
New York City fireman, those that run into the fire
or we got to we couldn't. We couldn't live without him,
you know.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
And I think that where the Chaker part was, because
that's exactly because my grandfather fought in World War One,
my father was in World War Two, my brother in Vietnam,
and the thing is is that then when I when
I take up martial arts, and they say, well that
the true martial artists, they're supposed to walk away from
the trouble. And I'm going, that's not what my dad said,
That's not what my grandfather used to sit down with
me too. And I think sometimes that we're trained that
(07:04):
walk around the trouble, don't get involved in the trouble.
And it's like, wow, that the men and women that's
you know, that have saved this nation walk into that
and get the job done.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Doesn't mean that they weren't afraid. And it uh and
and and you know, it means that you have understand
you have a duty and a commitment and a mission
and and and these guys had that, and it was
about it was about winning this war and coming back home,
and that's that was their goal. It wasn't any bigger
(07:38):
geopolitical thing than that. Of course, there was there were
evil empires around the world, two of them that had
to be defeated for them to be able to do that,
and that was their commitment. And later on some of
these crews were actually would have been able to rotate home,
and some of them did. But if some of them said, no,
(08:00):
we're still going to stay here because this is still
going on, and this is our job and we know
how to do it better than some new crew coming in,
so we'll stay. Well, there you go. That's commitment, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Please do not move. There's more with Bruce Henderson coming
up next the name of his book Midnight fly Boys,
the American bomber crews and Allied secret agents who aided
the French resistance in World War Two. We are back
with Bruce Henderson. When you write about, you know, flying
across the English Channel. I always sit there and wonder
(08:34):
that how that changed in so many people's eyes when
all of a sudden the swimmers began swimming across the
English Channel. Because I thought, all of a sudden it
shortened that journey those men and women that sat there
and fought during World War one and two with the
English Channel, because it looked bigger than life until the
swimmers stepped into the history books.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, I'll say that well. And I opened the book
with how about just flying a plane across the Atlantic?
Speaker 1 (09:01):
How about that?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
I mean that in itself in those days, with the
kind of equipment they had, and you know, I started
with it, you know, from the point of view of
the navigator who's responsible for finding the coast of Africa
when they're flying over from they drop down to South
America to go to southern crossing across the Atlantic instead
of the winter crossing the northern crossing during the winter.
(09:26):
But the tension of that, is Africa going to be
where I think it is? And did I point us
the right direction all night? Or are we going to
be in the middle of the ocean circling around? And
I mean just that in itself is a feat.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Wow, did you mean to scare us in chapter number one?
Where the hell are we? Because I mean there's a
side of me that gets it. But at the same time,
like you just said, you don't know where you are,
You're you're relying on hope and trust.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah, And that navigator really hoped that he hit it
on the nail, But he also realized that he'd be
responsible for the lives of nine other men if he
if he'd messed up. And I think that's also something
that we should keep in mind about these these kind
of these kind of veterans. Was it was always very
important and I don't care it wasn't just their war,
but it was any war. They're really they're there, they
(10:17):
really want to They understand that anything they do that
could save the life of their buddy is of paramount
importance and more important than honestly killing the enemy is
not killing your own, you know, your own crew man.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
The I would love to see the research on how
many people they pick up the book and they're paging
through the opening, the opening parts of it, and all
of a sudden they come across the photo of your uncle,
Lieutenant Robert G. Silva. I can't quit looking at that photo.
And I'm not the only one who looks at that
photo and and tries to pull themselves into it. And
I want to just remind those listeners go to the paragraphs,
(11:01):
because that's how you're getting into that photograph.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
You know what's really amazing when I tell you this,
You know, we've had I've had grew up with photos
of my uncle Bob, you know, and you know, just
and yet it wasn't until I was doing the research
on this book that I found that photo. And the
other photos we had of him were before he went overseas,
you know, smiling and looking very young and all of that.
(11:27):
When I found this, it sent a chill down my
back because this was him climbing out of the cockpit
of his P fifty one with the kind of with
a kind of strain and drain in his face that
I had not seen before. And he was obviously just
coming back from a mission, and he was in England,
and it was at the airfield that within a few
(11:49):
weeks he would fly off on his final mission and
never come back. And that photo just I mean, I
actually had another photo for that page in that book,
and I and when I found this photo, I exchanged
it because this is the real deal. This is him
at war. Yep. Wow.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
So now I know how my mother and grandmother were
when it came to the photos, how protective they were,
and how we could not put our hands on them.
How did you get your hands on these photos? What
was the magic word that you had to do in
order to get into that book?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Well, the suitcase that I opened at my grandmother's place
eventually became mine, Oh my god. And you know, when
she passed, I was the family historian. And so I've
had that suitcase all these years, and every letter in
it every six months or year over the last for
(12:46):
years have have read again and to try to piece together,
you know, who my uncle was, and try to understand
who it was. And that has really brought me into
these World War two books in a very personal way.
It's not just about getting a book deal for me.
It's about really telling the lives of these folks who
(13:07):
were alive, are and aren't now, but trying to understand
them more. What did they think, what did they feel,
what did they go through? What were they willing to do?
Speaker 1 (13:17):
You know, the one thing that's missing from your book,
because you've talked about the suitcase and we're not the
only ones that have done that, opened up the suitcase
or the box. The one thing that's missing from the
pages the scent of when we open the suitcase and
all of a sudden, that scent comes up because you
know that you've stepped into history, and history comes with
a smell, but you never forget it because all of
(13:38):
a sudden, you're touching it, you're feeling it, you're smelling it,
you're envisioning yourself in it, and it's like that is
such a moment. And then for you to write about
the situation about the men and women all of a sudden,
we are in that moment. You're like a time machine
with this.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Well, thank you. I mean, I hope that is the case,
because I'm certainly there when I'm writing it, yep, and
I'm trying to I'm trying to bring the reader into
it too, and very as personally as in a personal way,
I hope for them too.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Do you feel like that you found the needle to
the haystack because you're uncovering things that fifty years in
the hiding and all of a sudden here comes Bruce.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yeah. And you know what, I love this book and
it brought me into back into pilots. Why did it
take me so long to write about pilots and Airman
when I had this wet obsession since I was a kid.
And now I've I've so enjoyed doing Midnight fly Boys
that I've decided and drum roll pleased, because I don't
think I've ever felt ready to do it. The next
(14:39):
book's going to be about my uncle and the group
of fighter pilots that he flew with, which it turned
out turns out to be a legendary group of pioneer
Mustang pilots. And so that's going to be my next one,
and as I've told my wife, this would be a
nice swan song if it was going to be my
last book. Of course, she pointed out to me, I've
(15:00):
said that for my last six books.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah. So, now, how were you able to uncover some
secret operations about D Day? Because I mean we to me,
the knowledge of D Day is what we see on
TV and what historians on TV and or in magazines
are willing to share with us. But you give us
a completely different angle when it comes to the secret operations.
(15:24):
Now you've got my attention.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Yeah, well, you know, they were all secret and classified,
and nobody saw them until about well for fifty years
after the war. And that doesn't mean that they suddenly
all became we're all in one place that you could
walk into a room and start reading them. You do
have to find where they're at, what archives they're in,
(15:49):
those kinds of official reports. I mean, that's that's the
kind of stuff we do, that's behind the scenes that
you know, I don't really particularly share with the because
it's it's not that exciting, but it certainly are. I
have the rabbit holes that I need to go down to,
uh to get the mission reports to get the missing
(16:11):
aircraft reports, Who was on that plane, how old are they,
where they and what home down were they from? And
that's a start. And then I try to reach out
and find there any any sort of if any of
them that were still alive, or their families, more so
now the families. And that's also very interesting when I
(16:33):
reach out to families who and sometimes it's the second
or third generation removed, but some other people have suitcases
in the attic too. I found they do, and uh,
you know, and they love that. They're now talking about
their grandfather they never knew but always wanted to know
more about. And oh, we do have some stuff around here.
(16:55):
Can we share that with you? And that's what I
look for, And that's that's really what that's the fuel
that drives.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Me, mister Bruce. Right here in front of me is
a desk that was on a World War II warship
that was owned by a captain. And on this laptop desk,
there's a letter in it and explaining to dear future reader.
And this desk is in front of me every single day.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Let me guess, is it gray metal?
Speaker 1 (17:21):
It's brown with metal. It looks like it's brass on
the outside. In fact, I'm looking at it right now.
I mean it is built like a monster, is what
it is. And of course it's got the leather on
the inside, but it's all worn out because of all
these years. But when you hold that letter in your
hand and you see his physical handwriting, they don't teach
people how to write like that anymore.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
They don't.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
They don't.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
No, you're absolutely right. They don't wow people to write
with their index fingers.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Isn't that the darn truth? Where can people go to
find out more about what you're doing? Because I love
where your heart is and history needs you in the future.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Well, thank you, And my website is Bruce Henderson books
dot com and certainly in Midnight. Four Boys is also
available wherever books are sold, whether it's your local independent
or Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
You got to come back to this show anytime in
the future, because you know, it was Colonel Oliver North
that told me I am not a radio broadcaster until
I start telling the stories of the men and women
that fought for this nation. And you are now part
of that circle, sir.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Thank you. I'll come back with my book about my uncle.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Let's do it. Let's do it. I want to hear
your uncle's stories. Thank you, Rol, you'd be brilliant today.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Okay, thank you
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