Overview

From flying high to fighting for his life In 1940 when adventure called, Madsen ""Ty"" Cobb Kokjer dropped out of college and joined the Army Air Corps to become a pilot. This book is the memoir he might have written about the war he so unexpectedly found himself in. After a year of exhilaration-learning to fly, visiting places he had never been, meeting other young men like himself from all over the country-Ty and his friends arrived in the Philippines days before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Hours after that attack, Japan bombed other U.S. bases in the Pacific, including those near Manila. Ty and other pilots were eager to bomb Japanese ships, but their planes were still on a navy convoy, many miles away. The pilots became members of the infantry, but after four months of battle, the United States surrendered the Philippines. 78,000 American and Filipino soldiers became prisoners of war and began the cruel and deadly 60-mile Bataan Death March. Ty was one of the few to escape. For eight months, Ty and two other American soldiers hid with a Filipino family who housed and fed them at great risk to themselves. During that time, Ty kept a diary, which along with hundreds of letters written by Ty, his parents, and others, tell one young man's World War II story. Order your copy of this gripping WW2 true story today.

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9798987414200

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Jody Beck grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, the oldest of five children born to Leo J. Beck Jr. and Phyllis Kokjer Beck, Ty's cousin. Ty's parents were occasional visitors to the Beck home, but both died when Beck was in college and before she knew about Ty's story. She was a reporter for The Washington Star, an assignment editor at WRC-TV, taught journalism at the University of Maryland-College Park, and was director of the Scripps Howard Foundation's Semester in Washington Program. She earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and a master's degree from the University of Maryland, both in journalism. She lives in Washington, D.C. Contact her, read blog posts, and leave questions or reviews at jody-beck.com

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