On September 6, 1943, more than 300 B-17 "Flying Fortresses" of the American Eighth Air Force took off from England for Stuttgart, Germany, to bomb Nazi weapons factories. Dense clouds obscured the targets, and one commander's critical decision to run the gauntlet of explosive anti-aircraft fire not just once but three times that day would prove disastrous. Forty-five planes went down, with hundreds of men killed or missing. A navy veteran and former congressman from Long Island, Robert Mrazek vividly re-creates this fierce air battle through the first-person accounts of six airmen, revealing the astonishing valor of those who survived being shot down, and the fate of those who did not.