Fighting the Night: Iwo Jima, World War II, and a Flyer's Life

by Paul Hendrickson Narrated by Fred Sanders, Paul Hendrickson

Overview

From the acclaimed and best-selling author of Hemingway's Boat, the profoundly moving story of his father's wartime service as a night fighter pilot, and the prices he and his fellow soldiers paid for their acts of selfless, patriotic sacrifice

In the fall of 1944, Joe Paul Hendrickson, the author's father, kissed his twenty-one-year-old wife and two baby children goodbye. The twenty-five-year-old first lieutenant, pilot of a famed P-61 Black Widow, was leaving for the war. He and his night fighter squadron were sent to Iwo Jima, where, for the last five and a half months of World War II, he flew approximately seventy-five missions, largely in pitch-black conditions. His wife would wait out the war at the home of her small-town Ohio parents, one of the countless numbers of American family members shouldering the burden of being left behind.

Joe Paul, the son of a Depression-poor Kentucky sharecropper, was fresh out of high school in 1937 when he enlisted in mechanic school in the peacetime Army Air Corps. Eventually, he was able to qualify for flight school. After marriage, and with the war on, the young officer and his bride crisscrossed the country, airfield to airfield, base to base: Santa Ana, Yuma, Kissimmee, Bakersfield, Orlando, La Junta, Fresno. He volunteered for night fighters and the newly arrived and almost mythic Black Widow. A world away, the carnage continued. As Paul Hendrickson tracks his parents' journey, together and separate, both stateside and overseas, he creates a vivid portrait of a hard-to-know father whose time in the war, he comes to understand, was something truly heroic, but never without its hidden and unhidden psychic costs.

Bringing to life an iconic moment of American history, and the tragedy of all wars, Fighting the Night is an intense and powerful story of violence and love, forgiveness and loss. And it is a tribute to those who got plunged into service, in the best years of their lives, and the sacrifices they and their loved ones made, then and thereafter.

This program includes a bonus PDF with photographs, referenced in the book, that are essential to the listening experience.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Here is another magnificent work of non-fiction literature from the master craftsman Paul Hendrickson. Like the others, this book is scrupulously honest, deeply felt and beautifully written. But now he turns his art to a timeless subject: a son’s quest to know—really know—his father.”​ —David Von Drehle, author of The Book of Charlie

"A beautifully written exploration of [the author's] father’s World War II service as the pilot of a P-61 Black Widow night fighter... Paul Hendrickson...is a probing journalist who prioritizes facts over sensationalism...[in this] absorbing narrative.... Mr. Hendrickson spoke with a dizzying array of family members and friends... [and though] he never met the only enlisted man on the three-man crew... his research... is so evocative and perceptive that one might think the author knew him intimately.... The book is a journey into discovery.... a fascinating immersion in the melancholy yet somehow uplifting tale of one American family... One comes away...highly impressed." —John C. McManus, The Wall Street Journal

"[A book] to brighten the rest of the season.... [Paul] Hendrickson, a former Washington Post staff writer, has written acclaimed books about Ernest Hemingway and Robert McNamara.... In his latest, he turns to the subject of his own family." —The Washington Post

"This thoroughly engrossing story is a miracle in oh so many ways."—Dayton Daily News

“In Fighting the Night, Paul Hendrickson has managed to revive the vanished world of his father, whose formative moment came long ago, when he flew a fighter plane over the Pacific. This is a heroic act of reporting, which doubles as a son's tribute to his dad.” —Dexter Filkins, author of The Forever War

"Tender, heartwarming, occasionally frightening, and written in a conversational style that invites the reader into his family, Hendrickson pilots this richly illuminating chronicle across Depression-era Kentucky farmlands to flight school and through his father's deployment in the Pacific and his postwar career as a pilot for Eastern Airlines... An excellent, engrossing work of family and world history that leaves readers thinking in new ways about the consequences of military service."—James Pekoll, Booklist

"Detailing the challenges of a young military family, Joe Paul's dangerous wartime missions, and the lingering effects of war, Hendrickson poignantly examines a life and a historic time."—Library Journal

"[A] detailed, vivid narrative, which benefits from intensive archival research and exhaustive interviews...An expert account of a father’s WWII experiences that gives his fellow airmen equal attention."—Kirkus Reviews

"Biographer Hendrickson (Plagued by Fire) offers an intimate exploration of the life and military career of his father, U.S. Army Air Corps pilot Joe Hendrickson (1918–2003)... Coupling a poignant personal journey with propulsive aviation action, this WWII history flies high."—Publishers Weekly

"With deep vision, Paul Hendrickson narrates his search for what his Dad and his combat buddies experienced in the Pacific. It is beautifully reported and written, like all of Paul’s work. What makes this book special is that it’s a much larger journey into the collective psyche of the members of the Baby Boom generation who have lived in the light and shadow of their parents’ experiences in combat long ago."—David Ignatius, columnist, The Washington Post

“Paul Hendrickson has long stood apart from other writers because of his singular, lyrical voice, and Fighting the Night is the work of a great author at his very best. The themes have universal appeal — fathers and sons, love and war — but the true heart of Fighting the Night is Hendrickson’s reckoning with the ghosts of a life in a book that is hypnotic, profound, achingly honest and compulsively readable." —David Finkel, author of Thank You for Your Service

“Fighting the Night is beautiful, searing, and poignant, an investigation of the human heart, of sky, and of father and son, prewar and postwar. I thought it might be another WWII book, and while there’s war, sure enough, it’s what happens in the hearts of men (and mothers on the home front) that distinguishes this book. Paul Hendrickson was walking toward the batter’s box through all his books, leading up to this moment. And when it came time to finally lay this one down, he swung with the fierceness of a Babe Ruth. It takes a certain kind of mountain climbing to write a book like this. Readers are going to be mighty grateful.”—Wil Haygood, author of Colorization

“There are countless books about World War II, the war in the Pacific, and the fight for Iwo Jima. Paul Hendrickson’s Fighting the Night is unique — a son telling the story of his father’s experiences as a combat pilot in the aftermath of the Iwo Jima campaign but written with extraordinary intimacy about how he got there, what he did there, and the impact it had on the rest of his life and on his family. It is a story of friendships forged, the emotional scars, and just coping after the war. Fighting the Night is more, though.  It is the story of every war, every man in combat, and the scars each man — and his family — bears. It is a beautiful book, a stark and raw one in many ways, and a magnificent tribute to the author's father.”—Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense 2006-2011

Kirkus Reviews

2024-02-15
An acclaimed author digs into his father’s service in World War II.

Like many sons of the Greatest Generation, Hendrickson, author of Plagued by Fire and Hemingway’s Boat, regrets not exploring his father’s story until after his death. He makes up for it in this detailed, vivid narrative, which benefits from intensive archival research and exhaustive interviews. His father, Joe Paul, was the third of nine children of a hardscrabble Kentucky sharecropper, and he was probably the most ambitious. He joined the Army Air Corps in 1937, trained as a mechanic, and quickly rose to crew chief. He yearned to attend flight school, and in 1942, a few months after getting married, he gained entrance. His highly specialized pilot training, which included work with the high-tech, radar-equipped P-61 Black Widow night fighter, required two years, and he and his family crisscrossed the country, often by car, an experience that exhausted his wife and young children. He was finally sent to the Pacific, arriving at Iwo Jima in March 1945, when the brutal land battle was almost over. Hendrickson delivers a lively account of the following six months. Joe Paul and his unit patrolled and attacked other islands but rarely encountered enemy fighters. Despite several scares, he emerged from the war largely unscathed, raised five children, and enjoyed a long career as a commercial airline pilot. Although he was a strict disciplinarian, his children loved him dearly. Aside from a few details about his family life, the text remains focused on Joe Paul’s wartime experiences. A skilled journalist, Hendrickson tracked down and interviewed the children, grandchildren, and cousins of other members of the unit to deliver biographies of other fliers, many of whom had only vague memories of his father.

An expert account of a father’s WWII experiences that gives his fellow airmen equal attention.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940159610133
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	05/07/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

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