Lieutenant Todd Hamilton thought his career was over when an unforecasted windstorm tore loose the barrage balloons that made up his little command and blew them to Europe. The errant balloons, trailing their steel cables, caused havoc with electric transformers, power lines and train switches. Little could Todd know that subsequent developments triggered by this event would propel him to the highest levels of the British command structure and put him in direct conflict with "Bomber" Harris and the strategic bombing command of England. Aided and abetted by Churchill himself, Todd is given the responsibility of building an armada of balloons to carry wires and incendiaries over the Fatherland, literally burning the heart out of Hitler’s Thousand-Year Reich. Working with a happy-go-lucky crew of military rejects and a beautiful war widow, Todd uses "out of the box" thinking to bring the Third Reich to its knees.
On the other side of the world, the Japanese, with their strongest ally on the ropes, are now desperate for a quick victory and stage a successful submarine and air attack on Pearl Harbor and San Diego. Susan Waterman watches in horror from the heights above San Diego as multiple hits from Japanese "Long Lance" torpedoes sink the mighty Saratoga in full view of the harbor. Her husband is a pilot on the Saratoga. Again, all is not as it seems. Devoid of his carriers and with a fresh appreciation of the vulnerability of capital ships to air power, the old submariner Admiral Chester Nimitz turns to the silent service to save the day. Combined with another unique weapon -- incendiary carrying bats, the Navy brings the war to the Japanese homeland in a spectacular fashion.
Walt C. Snedeker has woven a tight web of a story that is shockingly believable -- combining little known facts from WWII with a perception of what might have been. Walt's villains are nasty, his heroes human and the comeuppances, when they finally come, will make you cheer.
On the other side of the world, the Japanese, with their strongest ally on the ropes, are now desperate for a quick victory and stage a successful submarine and air attack on Pearl Harbor and San Diego. Susan Waterman watches in horror from the heights above San Diego as multiple hits from Japanese "Long Lance" torpedoes sink the mighty Saratoga in full view of the harbor. Her husband is a pilot on the Saratoga. Again, all is not as it seems. Devoid of his carriers and with a fresh appreciation of the vulnerability of capital ships to air power, the old submariner Admiral Chester Nimitz turns to the silent service to save the day. Combined with another unique weapon -- incendiary carrying bats, the Navy brings the war to the Japanese homeland in a spectacular fashion.
Walt C. Snedeker has woven a tight web of a story that is shockingly believable -- combining little known facts from WWII with a perception of what might have been. Walt's villains are nasty, his heroes human and the comeuppances, when they finally come, will make you cheer.
