{"product_id":"the-last-mission-9780440947974","title":"The Last Mission","description":"In 1944, as World War II is raging across Europe, fifteen-year-old Jack Raab dreams of being a hero. Leaving New York City, his family, and his boyhood behind, Jack uses a false I.D. and lies his way into the U.S. Air Force. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom their base in England, he and his crew fly twenty-four treacherous bombing missions over occupied Europe. The war is almost over and Hitler near defeat when they fly their last mission -- a mission destined for disaster. Shot down far behind enemy lines, Jack is taken prisoner and sent to a German POW camp, where his experiences are more terrifying than anything he'd ever imagined.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHarry Mazer's \u003ci\u003eThe Last Mission \u003c\/i\u003eis drawn closely from his experiences as a seventeen-year-old in the Army Air Corps. Like Jack, he was a Jewish boy from the Bronx full of fantasies about heroism, and like Jack, he became a waist gunner and never fired his guns. He remembers, \"I was scared every time we flew....On our 26th mission we flew over Pilzen, Czechoslovakia, to bomb the Skoda Munitions Works. We missed our target, turned over the target again, and were hit. I saw Mike, who was our radio operator, frozen in the door of the radio room. He never made it out of the plane. Only three of us parachuted....No one in the plane lived.\" (\u003ci\u003e ALAN Review, \u003c\/i\u003eFall 1980) \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHarry Mazer is the editor of \u003ci\u003eTwelve Shots: Outstanding Short Stories About Guns, \u003c\/i\u003ewhere twelve authors explore the extreme emotions that guns provoke in all of us. Walter Dean Myers, Rita Williams-Garcia, Richard Peck and other well-known authors create a riveting collection of short fiction that explores the emotion-driven world of guns.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Laurel Leaf Library","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50629226299666,"sku":"9780440947974","price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_9d01eefe-f953-4f85-a9c0-e35b1b5a2000.jpg?v=1732724965","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-last-mission-9780440947974","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}