Midnight Flyboys
Bruce Henderson
Gallery Books
November 11th, 2025
Veteran’s Day is a holiday to honor US veterans and victims of all wars. Bruce Henderson wrote about real life heroes of WWII.
Bruce noted, “Veteran’s Day is a day that Americans should remember. I am a veteran. I choose this day to honor the greatest generation for their duty, commitment, and mission. When darkness was descending on the world they answered the call. They tried to preserve our democracy and personal freedom. I hope today we do not let their sacrifices be in vain.”
Midnight Flyboys by Bruce Henderson details how the American bomber crews dropped Allied secret agents behind the Nazi lines to aid the French resistance. The mission, known as Operation Carpetbagger, had American aircrews flying B-24 Liberators to secret Resistance drop zones. Through their planes’ bomb hanger doors, containers of guns, explosives, grenades, radios, and food were dropped along with agents. On this Veterans Day, Americans should think about the incredible heroism displayed by these men and women.
One of the most important highlights of the book was the chapters on Nancy Wake. “I wrote her story because it is amazing. She was a British agent sent into France to organize, arm, and train the resistance forces. Interestingly, she was afraid of heights and needed a push from a crewman to parachute out of the plane. Nancy was a free spirit, capable, resourceful, instinctive, tough, hardened, and improvised. She was born an Aussie, married a Frenchman, and was a loyal British subject. She was highly motivated personally and patriotically because of her love for her adoptive country France and the love for her husband she left behind there. The Germans put a substantial bounty on her and labeled her ’The White Mouse.’”
Then there were the Carpetbaggers. “I want people to understand they were American pilots. Operation Carpetbaggers was a joint secretive operation between the American OSS and their British counterparts the SOE who trained most of the agents that were dropped. They flew the B-24 Bomber were designed to fly at a high altitude in formation. Instead, they have been asked to fly solo at night to find a dark field in France. They had to fly the plane slower and lower than it was meant to fly. This could cause stalling. If they were at 1500 feet of altitude they could recover but they were 600 to 800 feet off the ground and would probably crash.”
This is a gripping tale of how these undercover missions helped win the war for the Allies.
