One Slow High Flying Target Survivor

"One Slow High Flying Target Survivor" is an autobiography by WWII B-17 Bombardier and POW A. J. Dobek. The now 83 year-old Dobek was 20 and living in Dunkirk, NY when he received his induction into military service in 1942. The book recounts his training days as a U.S. Army Air Cadet, his 14 missions and being shot down over Berlin on March 6, 1944. Dobek bailed out of the stricken plane at 24,000 feet and did a free fall for 17,000 feet before opening his parachute. When he finally touched the ground he was immediately captured by the Germans and held captive for 15 months in a POW camp on the North Sea until his liberation by the Russian Army in 1945. Dobek and few fellow prisoners, tired of waiting for the allies to show up, walked back to their lines with a little help from the Russians and people they met along the way.