The Air-Raid Warden Was a Spy: And Other Tales from Home-Front America in World War II Hardcover - 2003

Summary

First line

AMERICA'S MAGNIFICENT CAPITOL, its huge white dome topped by a twenty-foot-high statue of Freedom, was keeping watch over sprawling Washington, D.C., on this bleak, frigid Sunday of December 7, 1941.

From the jacket flap

In his latest collection of fresh and surprising stories from World War II, popular author and distinguished historian William Breuer recounts over fifty little-known tales of military actions, espionage, and skullduggery on the home front. Based on personal interviews, official archives, and declassified documents, The Air-Raid Warden Was a Spy features intriguing accounts of covert raids and combat experiments, spies and saboteurs, draft dodgers and do-gooders, and various escapes and secret operations.

Fascinating and fast-paced, The Air-Raid Warden Was a Spy returns the reader to American shores and, in Breuer's inimitable style, reveals dramatic and pivotal moments during the war, such as:

• The rounding up of 3,846 subversive suspects in the United States within the first seventy-two hours after Pearl Harbor
• The plane that bombed the Pacific Northwest
• The sinking of a Japanese submarine off the California coast
• The near destruction of Coney Island, thanks to eager-beaver air-raid wardens who searched the friendly skies for hostile aircraft
• The secret plan to draft females
• A barrage of explosive balloons
• The Nazi U-boat in New York Harbor
• The army bomber that crashed into the Empire State Building
• The dismantling of a Nazi spy network based in New York City-which included U.S. citizens

Breuer deftly captures the state of the nation when the first shock waves hit and war became an all-too-close-to-home reality, as women flocked to war plants and Hollywood celebrities gave up their hefty paychecks to enlist. As the stories unfold and the home front itself appears to be under siege, The Air-Raid Warden Was a Spy underscores the devotion and sacrifices of the members of the armed forces and their families-and the country's determination to bring the global conflict to an end.