Escape from Paris

August 12, 2019
In this thrilling WWII history from Harding (Dawn of Infamy), two lives collide in a story of bravery, sacrifice, and love. Joe Cornwall was an American B-17 crew member flying missions into German territory. Yvette Morin was a member of the French Resistance. On July 14, 1943, Cornwall participated in one of the Allies’ largest bombing missions. His plane was shot down, and he went on the run in Nazi-occupied France. Resistance members helped him reach Paris, and that’s where he crossed paths with Morin. Long-term caretakers of Hôtel des Invalides, the large historic veterans hospital and Napoleon’s tomb in the center of Paris, the Morin family had been using their roles as keepers of the keys to the complex’s secret passageways and underground tunnels to hide members of the French Resistance and downed Allied airmen. It didn’t take long for the American airman and the beautiful French Resistance fighter to fall in love, before tragedy separated them. Drawing on interviews with a still-feisty Yvette, now 90, and unfettered access to the Joe’s papers and letters, Harding masterfully recreates thrilling details of air combat, the intrigue of the French Resistance, and the horrors of war. This masterfully told and dramatic tale will keep readers spellbound until the final page. Agent: Scott Mendel, Mendel Media Group.

September 1, 2019
A poignant World War II saga of the relationship between an American gunner shot down over France and the French family who helped him. In his latest, Military History editor-in-chief Harding (Dawn of Infamy: A Sunken Ship, a Vanished Crew, and the Final Mystery of Pearl Harbor, 2016, etc.) tells the story of Joe Cornwall, who was part of the joint American and British group targeting Le Bourget airport near Paris on Bastille Day 1943. A horrendous collision sent Cornwall and some other survivors parachuting into the French countryside to spend months evading capture by the Germans. By a remarkable stroke of luck--and the help of kindly French people--Cornwall and a few of his buddies were directed to the shelter of the concierges of the famed Hôtel des Invalides in Paris, the home of invaluable works of art as well as famous tombs such as that of Napoleon. In the vast subterranean maze of the hotel, Georges Morin, a disabled veteran of World War I with a hatred for the Germans--along with his wife, Denise, and adult daughter, Yvette--sheltered several of the Allied soldiers. Harding gradually builds the suspense regarding the blossoming love between Cornwall and Yvette with nicely specific details of life in the Army and in occupied Paris. Eventually, the urgency of making the "home run" back to base in England required most of the survivors of the group to take the perilous route through Spain and the Pyrenees to Gibraltar. Ultimately, Cornwall did make the route home, somewhat later than his comrades, having secured an engagement with Yvette. Little did he know the perils that the Morins would face when they fell into the hands of the Gestapo. An engaging human story of the complicated and fraught relationship between the French and their American allies.

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