Lodestone Lola: The Story of an Airplane

Lodestone Lola: The Story of an Airplane and her Pilot

This is the gripping tale of a replacement pilot and his veteran airplane, a hand-me-down Martin B-26 Marauder that nobody else in the 328th Bomb Group wants to fly. Arriving fresh from stateside training, Lieutenant Jack Braden comes from a hard-luck Great Depression background marked by tragedy. As for Lodestone Lola, his high-mission B-26, she’s a flak magnet who can’t poke her nose into the blue without coming home with more holes. From life at an English airfield in pastoral Essex to harrowing missions over Hitler’s Fortress Europe, this meticulously researched work of fiction is solidly grounded in historical fact. American bomber bases, the technologies of the time, and historical events such as D-Day air support become real in the minds of readers, who feel they were actually there. Remarkably, most of the events dramatized in these pages occurred in real-life Marauder operations. Following in the tradition of Twelve O’Clock High and The War Lover, this is the WWII flying story we’ve long been waiting for.

• Author: Jay Spenser
• Page Count: 252