Summary
The
Road He Chose, is
a historical novel with a military and war background. It is about how young Americans, as well as
their French contemporaries, were catapulted prematurely into adulthood by World War
II--and how they handled it.
The
plot revolves around one of twin brothers from Atlanta who are
seventeen years old when Pearl Harbor is attacked. Will, the
protagonist, is very headstrong and refuses to wait until he is
of lawful age to join the Army Air Corps. He lies about his age,
is caught in the deception by his parents, and his enlistment in
the Army Aviation Cadet program is annulled.
Alienated
from his family, he runs away from home and hitch-hikes to
Quebec City, seeking the help of some Québécois
separatists who are known for getting Americans into the Royal
Canadian Air Force despite the then-policies of the Canadian and
U.S. Governments. After
entering the RCAF under an assumed name, his instructors consider him to be a gifted flyer and, at the
end of his flight training, he flies the famous Mosquito
aircraft in the RAF’s elite Pathfinders
unit.
After
participating—with the aid of a French résistance
unit, Les Amis de Liberté—in
a daring rescue of an Italian partisan, the protagonist is
transferred to the U.S. Army and assigned to OSS. He then is
parachuted into France to work with the résistants
before and after the Normandy landings.
Within
days after D-Day he is designated by OSS and British
Intelligence to
lead the most secret and important mission of the entire war—a
mission so secret that it must remain forever so, except in the
memories of a mere handful of men and women who actually lived
it.
Read
a Chapter...
|
