Title: Goodbye, Liberty Belle
Description: In 1944, B-24 pilot Jim Merritt, returning to his base in Italy from a mission over Vienna, nursed his flak-damaged bomber as far as Axis-occupied Croatia before bailing out. Aided by Tito’s partisans, for the next 49 days he and his crew made their way through enemy lines to safety. Forty-two years later his son reconstructed those events and returned with his dad  to the crash site and a reunion with his rescuers. “Goodbye, Liberty Belle is the dramatic re-creation of that walk to freedom [and] draws moving portraits of young men on both sides of the battlefield caught up in the tragedy of World War II.” — People magazine

[“Goodbye Liberty Belle”] involves a network of themes that usually occur in a novel: the nurture of old memories, the grasp of long-forgotten friendships, the dawning of understanding between father and son. ... This grandly complex tale is handled expertly by Merritt the younger. “Goodbye, Liberty Belle” is a war story, sort of, but has enough facets to gleam brightly whichever way you look at it. 
— Edward Parks, Smithsonian magazine
Subjects: American Aerial operations, Biography, Bomber pilots, Combat survival, Description and travel, Escapes, History, Underground movements, World War, 1939-1945, Fathers and sons, World war, 1939-1945, aerial operations, american, World war, 1939-1945, underground movements, yugoslavia, Yugoslavia, description and travel
Places: Croatia, United States, Yugoslavia
People: Jim Merritt
Time periods: 20th century / 1944 and 1986