After being shot down in Nazi-occupied Romania during WWII, a rookie American bomber crew must turn to unlikely allies: Romanian royalty. A thrilling true story from the It’s July 1943, and every available American B-24 bomber has been gathered in the Libyan desert for a secret mission: a raid against Ploesti, home to the Romanian oil refineries that supply Hitler’s war machine with the lifeblood of war. But smashing “Hitler’s gas station” will require the most daring mission of the war, a raid of heavy bombers attacking volatile refineries at treetop level. That task falls to Lieutenant Ernie Paulson and the rookie bomber crews of the 389th Bomb Group. A twenty-two-year-old copilot, Ernie, a farm kid from humble origins in Utah, is now embarking on the first adventure of his life. But when Ernie and his crew are shot down during the adrenaline-fueled attack, they crash-land in the last place they ever imagined: on the estate of Romanian princess Catherine Caradja. After rescuing them from the clutches of the Nazis that occupy Romania, Princess Catherine adopts the American POWs as “her boys” and vows to get them home. Along the way, she brings the young men into a circle of unlikely allies, including Romania''s twenty-one-year-old monarch, who''s searching for a way to extract his nation from the Axis powers, and her cousin, a dashing Romanian ace reluctantly flying for the wrong side. As the war turns against Germany, the American prisoners and their Romanian captors come to an understanding--their survival depends on joining forces. When Romania’s young king stages a coup against the Nazis, Ernie and the POWs are drawn into their most perilous mission yet: a great escape that will require the aid of their unlikely Romanian allies, forging a bond of friendship that will shape the rest of their lives. From a long-overlooked front of World War II, Adam Makos delivers a gripping true story destined to join the ranks of military history’s finest....

Autorentext

Adam Makos

Klappentext

From the author of the New York Times bestsellers A Higher Call, Spearhead, and Devotion comes an astonishing true story set in an untold arena of World War II.

“Tidal Wave is epic in every way. Like all good WWII books, it reminds us again, in the starkest terms possible, how much we owe to those who won that war.”—Daniel James Brown, author of The Boys in the Boat

It’s summer 1943, and the world is on fire.

Lieutenant Ernie Poulson, a twenty-two-year-old outdoorsman from Utah, finds himself at the controls of America’s most advanced bomber, the B-24, brought to North Africa for a top-secret mission.

On the far side of Europe, Lieutenant Constantin Cantacuzino, Romania’s most daring ace, duels Soviet fighters on the Eastern Front while searching for purpose in an unwinnable war.

In Nazi-aligned Romania, Princess Catherine Caradja walks a perilous line between loyalty to her country and quiet defiance, as German forces dig in around the oil refineries in her backyard.

And in the royal palace, twenty-one-year-old King Michael of Romania—mocked and sidelined by a Nazi-backed dictator—quietly plots to seize his nation’s destiny before it is lost forever.

In Tidal Wave, Adam Makos brings these lives together in a sweeping saga of courage and survival, set against history’s most audacious air raid: the treetop assault on “Hitler’s gas station” at Ploesti, Romania. What begins in flames on August 1, 1943, sparks bonds no one could have foreseen—alliances between enemies—that will decide whether these men and women are consumed by war, or seize their chance at escape and redemption.

Drawn from years of extensive research and told with Makos’s signature cinematic intensity, Tidal Wave will remind you that even in war’s darkest hours, humanity has a way of breaking through.