Travis L. Ayres is a broadcast professional who spent fifteen years “on the air” in New York City at ABC and CBS.  His radio career has also included extended stays in New Orleans and Hartford.  A life long interest in American history led him to write his first book Shiloh to Stones River (the story of his great grandfather’s adventures with the Confederate 16th Louisiana Infantry Regiment).

Mr. Ayres is a U.S. Navy and Vietnam War veteran.  He now lives and writes in the  foothills of the Ozark Mountains of Northwest Arkansas.

Prologue

At the end of the only parachute jump of his life, Peter Seniawsky landed hard in a German farmer’s field. He was not even sure he had actually jumped from his crippled B-17 bomber. He only remembered waking up in mid-air and pulling the ripcord. As he gathered his parachute to his chest, his eyes scanned the surrounding area for a place to hide from the enemy soldiers that he knew would already be searching for him and the rest of his crew.

A small gully close by seemed to be his only immediate option. He scrambled over the edge of the gully and tumbled into a shallow stream. After pushing his parachute under the water and placing several stones on top of it, Peter climbed back up the stream bank to chance a look. He spotted someone immediately – a farmer, armed with a shotgun.

The man was walking in Peter’s direction. The young airman had never before thought of having to kill someone. It was almost a certainty that the bombs his B-17 crew had dropped on German cities had killed people. But the targets had been military and industrial sites and the dead were unseen and abstract. This was different. Peter could clearly see the farmer’s face as he walked across his own field.

 Peter knew he could not hesitate. He had heard the stories of how German civilians sometimes shot downed Allied airmen before the German soldiers could reach them. If the farmer kept walking in his direction Peter would have little choice but to kill him. He reached down to his side for his .45 automatic pistol. It was not there. No pistol and no holster. Peter silently cursed himself for his thoughtlessness in leaving his sidearm on his bunk that morning. What now?

The man continued walking in Peter’s direction, finally stopping no more than fifty feet away. It was a noise that had caused him to stop – the sound of a small machine gun. It was just a short burst but when Peter looked to the east, he spotted four German soldiers emerging from the woods. They were close to a hundred yards away and they began yelling to the farmer in German. He responded, waving his arms and yelling back to them. Of course, Peter could not understand any of it but he was certain his whereabouts were the main subject of the conversation. If any of them reached the edge of the gully and looked down the stream bed, they could not help but spot him.

 In a seemingly hopeless situation, Peter looked around again for even the slightest opportunity for escape. Escape. That was too grand a word for what he was trying to do. He was somewhere deep in Germany. Where he did not know.  How many miles to the French border to the west? He did not know. Which way was west. Did not know. Even if he could miraculously reach France, what then? The entire country was occupied by Germans and French collaborators. 

He had no weapon and only a candy bar for food. He did not speak German or French and was dressed in an American aviator’s uniform. Escape was too grand a word.  Peter Seniawsky was trying to survive – to evade capture, whether it be for a day, an hour or just five more minutes.

  He spotted a lone tree on the other side of the stream. If he could reach that tree without being seen and if the farmer and soldiers did not search past the stream...if he was really lucky.  He eased down the bank, crossed the stream, climbed the other bank and began slowly crawling toward the tree. Although he could not know it at the time, Peter was beginning one of the most amazing escape adventures of World War Two.

Every American bomber airman of European Theater of The Second World War shared one thing with Peter Seniawsky - the desire to survive against very long odds.  For most of these Bomber Boys (the majority only in their late teens or early twenties), the will to survive ranked a close second to doing their “job”.  Once their bombs were dropped over the day’s target, survival was priority one. They flew to the target for Uncle Sam and flew back to base for themselves. There were many ways to die – flak, Luftwaffe fighters, mid-air collision, weather, engine failure. Tens of thousands did not survive.

Many who did survive, wondered how as they landed at their air bases in Flying Fortresses that were riddled with flak holes or that were missing what everyone assumed were essential parts of an aircraft. The ones who came home were the first to say the “real heros” were the ones who did not. But to the survivors, belong the sometimes painful memories that must be stirred if the true stories are to be told.