Emil’s Story: Memoir of a WWII Bomber Pilot

For years, Linda Audrey Kantor has interviewed World War II veterans and published their stories in various venues to preserve their memories and to honor their heroism. With our Greatest Generation fast fading into history, one such interview gradually evolved into Emil's Story: Memoir of a WWII Bomber Pilot. By turns humorous, poignant, and tragic, this intense adventure focuses the war at a personal level--how it was to grow up on an isolated Minnesota farm during Prohibition, to be drafted first in Koochiching County, to leave a sweetheart behind, to be winnowed like grain through rigorous training schools, to be selected to pilot a B-24 bomber, and finally to fly thirty-five missions over the dangerous skies of Nazi Europe, facing death daily from flak, enemy fighters, accidents, and sheer incompetence. It was Emil's Story, but it also was the story of innumerable young men from farm, village, and city alike who, by choice and by circumstance, banded together to answer their nation's call to save the world from Nazi domination. Come along for the flight.

Linda Audrey Kantor grew up in rural Minnesota in the 1950s, where she was captivated by tales told by then-young WWII veterans. Her first mystery novel, The Enigma Journal, published in 2011, reflects her dual passions of World War II and Africa. Emil’s Story: Memoir of a WWII Bomber Pilot is the result of a seven-month interview with a B-24 Liberator pilot based in Italy. Her stories have been previously published in Safari International, Hunter’s Quest, Game Trails, and other adventure and big-game hunting magazines. She divides her time between Minnesota and Texas.