The Last Liberator

As a team of B-24 Liberator bombers undertakes an almost suicidal mission against the Romanian oil fields at Ploesti, flight engineer Abe Cohen, a petty thief who adopted a Jewish alias to hide from mob vengeance, fights his own private battle within himself

Abe Cohen, the hero of this WW II novel, is actually Danny Esposito, a two-bit hood who turned state's evidence at the trial of Lucky Luciano. To evade retribution from the Mafia, Esposito adopts a Jewish identity (though uncircumcised) and enlists in the Army Air Force, becoming a flight engineer on a B-24 Liberator bomber. The action centers on the ill-conceived and poorly executed air raid on Ploesti, the Romanian oil center that provided Axis forces with much of their petroleum. Interspersed with the account of the raid are flashbacks to Cohen's prior life and descriptions of his transformation into the man he pretends to be. The object of anti-Semitic slurs, he eventually becomes a supporter of the Zionist underground. The story of Ploesti (and an earlier attack on Rome) switches back and forth between the points of view of the Americans and the enemy, and mixes historical figures with fictional characters, a la Samuel Fuller's Big Red One. Although the combat sequences are compelling, the emotional heart of the book, Cohen's metamorphosis, lacks drive, while the Luciano subplot is muddled and contrived. Yulsman ( Elleander Morning ), who participated in the Ploesti raid, clearly knows his subject, and readers may wish that he had instead concentrated solely on the history of the battle.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A scrappy New Yorker hiding from Lucky Luciano during WW II flies with America's B-24 Liberators on the first great bombing of the Ploesti oil refineries of Rumania. Yulsman (Elleander Morning, 1984) skillfully brings his own wartime experience into play. A deal between Mr. Hoover of the FBI and Mr. Luciano of the New York mob secures peace on the city's waterfront for the duration. Part of the comfortably imprisoned mafioso's payment for patriotic services rendered is the return to Luciano's clutches of Danny Esposito, an underling whose chats with the feds displeased the don. But Esposito, formerly of Hell's Kitchen, is not easily to be found, having enlisted as one Abraham Cohen in the Army, where he has become a crackerjack flight mechanic. Sgt. Cohen flies with the heavy bomb groups stationed in Libya. Duty takes him over southern Europe; pleasure takes him to Palestine, where he falls for an authentic Jewish girl, falls in with the Zionists, and, having fallen hard, undergoes an adult bris. Back in camp he departs from virtue with a sexy visiting USO singer, who fails to tell Cohen that she's married to his captain until she's had her way with him. Several times. Meanwhile, the FBI has tracked Cohen to Africa, and nearby German spies have found the bombers' secret training site and have figured out what the fliers are up to. First-rate flight. Sexy, snappy, and authentic. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The author, who was involved in the World War II Ploesti mission in Rumania, vividly portrays the Ploesti oil fields through the actions of the crew of a B-24 Liberator bomber. Abe Cohen, flight engineer, is not really Jewish but pretends to be. Captain Maguire, anti-Semitic, comes to admire Cohen, who is really a former Mafia informant. Swift-moving chapters alternate between the Ploesti mission and the turbulent and romantic days preceding it, including a period in Palestine and American involvement with arms for Jews. Exciting and readable, this should appeal to World War II buffs.
- Robert H. Donahugh, formerly with Youngstown & Mahoning Cty. P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.