Fighting the Night: Iwo Jima, World War II, and a Flyer’s Life

Biographer Hendrickson (Hemingway’s Boat) explores the life of his father, pilot Joe Paul Hendrickson. In 1937, Joe enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps as a mechanic. He later trained to be a pilot and, in 1944, joined a night-flying squadron. Joe was deployed to Iwo Jima, where his squadron flew some 75 nighttime missions in planes known as P-61 Black Widows. His young wife and children waited out the war in Ohio. After the war, Joe became a successful pilot for a major airline, but his home life was damaged by his fits of rage and violence toward his wife and children. In this memoir, his son strives to understand how the pressures of the war affected his father. Using military records, diaries, and personal interviews, Hendrickson lays out his father’s history, as well as the histories of the men who shared Joe’s journey. Narrator Fred Sanders delivers a straightforward reading of the story, offering solid pacing and clear enunciation. The author reads his epilogue with feeling. Photographs and a source list are included in an accompanying PDF.