Devotion

For readers of Unbroken, In the Garden of Beasts, and Band of Brothers comes a pulse-pounding, heart-wrenching tale of bravery and brotherhood set against the backdrop of America’s “forgotten war” in Korea—from the New York Times bestselling author of A Higher Call   Devotion tells the inspirational story of the U.S. Navy’s most famous aviator duo: Lieutenant Tom Hudner, a white, blue-blooded New Englander, and Ensign Jesse Brown, an African American sharecropper’s son from Mississippi. The heir to a Massachusetts grocery store empire, Tom passed up Harvard to fly fighter planes for his country. Jesse, fascinated by aircraft since childhood, defied the odds—and the prejudices of his time—to become the Navy’s first black carrier pilot. Barely a year after President Truman ordered the desegregation of the military, the unlikely pair joined forces as wingmen in Fighter Squadron 32. While much of America remained in the grip of the odious Jim Crow segregation laws, Jesse and Tom flew above the fray as brothers in arms.   Adam Makos takes us over the sea and around the globe with these two bold young aviators as they cut their teeth at the world’s most dangerous job—landing Corsair fighters on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Deployed to the Mediterranean, the two men revel in the perks of their newfound status, partying on the Riviera with millionaires and Hollywood starlets—including a young Elizabeth Taylor. While Jesse delights in a world he thought he’d never see, Tom meets the girl of his dreams. Then comes the war no one expected in far-off Korea.   Devotion brings us along on white-knuckle dive-bombing runs over North Korean territory, as the pilots of Fighter Squadron 32 man the front lines of what many of them believe is the opening battle of World War III. As the fury of the fighting escalates, Tom and Jesse fly, guns blazing, into waves of Communist troops to defend a group of Marines cornered in a hellish winter landscape. When one of the duo is shot down behind enemy lines and pinned in the burning wreckage of his fighter, the other faces an unthinkable choice: watch his friend die, or attempt one of history’s most audacious one-man rescue missions.   A tug-at-the-heartstrings tale of heroism and sacrifice, Devotion asks, How far would you go to save a friend? From the Hardcover edition.