The Last Fighter Pilot

From April to August of 1945, Captain Jerry Yellin and a small group of fellow fighter pilots flew dangerous bombing and strafe missions out of Iwo Jima over Japan. Even days after America dropped the atomic bombs—on Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9—the pilots continued to fly. Though Japan had suffered unimaginable devastation, the emperor still refused to surrender. New York Times bestselling author Don Brown (Treason) sits down with Yelllin, now ninety-one years old, to tell the incredible true story of the final combat mission of World War II. Nine days after Hiroshima, on the morning of August 15th, Yellin and his wingman 1st Lieutenant Phillip Schlamberg took off from Iwo Jima to bomb Tokyo. By the time Yellin returned to Iwo Jima, the war was officially over—but his young friend Schlamberg would never get to hear the news. The Last Fighter Pilot is a harrowing first-person account of war from one of America's...