CAN'T-WAIT WEDNESDAY: I Can't Wait for The Long Flight Home by Alan Hlad

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they're books that have yet to be released. Find out more here.

Once again my post is about a book that has recently been released. Another blogger (sorry, I should have, but didn't make note of whose blog it was) drew my attention to The Long Flight Home by Alan Hlad, a story of homing pigeons and World War II.

This brought to mind an episode of Antiques Roadshow that featured a medal awarded to a homing pigeon for bravery. The Dickin Medal was awarded to animals "displaying outstanding gallantry for service in wartime".

I've since discovered that one of these medals was awarded to an Australian pigeon, Australian Army Blue Bar cock pigeon DD43 T139, "for gallantry as a result of a flight he undertook through a severe tropical storm near Madang, New Guinea, on 12 July 1945". The pigeon's successful delivery of the message he carried resulted in an army boat, its important cargo and personnel being saved. The medal is held at the Australian War Museum.

Synopsis

Inspired by fascinating, true, yet little-known events during World War II, The Long Flight Home is a testament to the power of courage in our darkest hours—a moving, masterfully written story of love and sacrifice.

It is September 1940—a year into the war—and as German bombs fall on Britain, fears grow of an impending invasion. Enemy fighter planes blacken the sky around the Epping Forest home of Susan Shepherd and her grandfather, Bertie. After losing her parents to influenza as a child, Susan found comfort in raising homing pigeons with Bertie. All her birds are extraordinary to Susan—loyal, intelligent, beautiful—but none more so than Duchess. Hatched from an egg that Susan incubated in a bowl under her grandfather’s desk lamp, Duchess shares a special bond with Susan and an unusual curiosity about the human world.

Thousands of miles away in Buxton, Maine, a young crop-duster pilot named Ollie Evans has decided to travel to Britain to join the Royal Air Force. His quest brings him to Epping and to the National Pigeon Service, where Susan is involved in a new, covert assignment. Codenamed Source Columba, the mission aims to air-drop hundreds of homing pigeons in German-occupied France. Many will not survive. Those that do make the journey home to England can convey crucial information on German troop movements—and help reclaim the skies from the Luftwaffe.

The friendship between Ollie and Susan deepens as the mission date draws near. When Ollie’s plane is downed behind enemy lines, both know how remote the chances of reunion must be. Yet Duchess’s devotion and her singular sense of duty will become an unexpected lifeline, relaying messages between Susan and Ollie as war rages on—and proving, at last, that hope is never truly lost.

Release Date: June 25th 2019
Format: Print and ebook
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp
Genre: Historical Fiction, World War II