INTO THE INFERNO

INTO THE INFERNO 

By Bill Ibelle.

I'm sure many of us regret not having asked some of our now lost loved ones about their past lives and the people they knew.

This is certainly the case for author Bill Ibelle, whose father, like so many of his generation, found it difficult to talk about his wartime service. 

Bert Ibelle had been the right waist gunner aboard a USSAF B-17 bomber during the final year of the war.

Despite Bill's journalistic background and interviewing people for many years, he found it too difficult to ask his own father questions regarding the war. Sadly with his father's eventual passing, it became too late. 

Now retired and with the aid of family letters, his late father's journal and researching archives, Bill introduces readers to three young people who were seperated by war.

The book reveals their individual stories and how love, war and tragedy would all play a part.

In the case of Bill's father, we follow this 19-year-old man through his inital aircrew training before joining his squadron and flying on over twenty missions. 

This is the story of an airman over Europe, a soldier fighting the Japanese and a young woman back in the United States trying to deal with both the war from home and her feelings for the men she cared about.

 

How their individual stories unfolded and what Bill has discovered about all three, should be learnt from the book and not this review.

This triple biography of three young people has proved to be both a highly readable and very interesting story.

The hardback book is published by Casemate Publishers and is available now.

I thank Script Books, an imprint of Pen and Sword Books, for this review copy.