Under a Darkening Sky: The American Experience in Nazi Europe: 1939-1941

by Robert Lyman

Overview

A vivid social history of the American expatriate experience in Europe between 1939 and 1941, as the Nazi menace brings a shadow over the continent, heralding the storms of war.

A poignant and powerful portrait of Europe in the years between 1939 and 1941—as the Nazi menace marches toward the greatest man-made catastrophe the world has ever experienced—Under a Darkening Sky focuses on a diverse group of expatriate Americans. Told through the eyes and observations of these characters caught up in these seismic events, the story unfolds alongside a war that slowly drags a reluctant United States into its violent embrace.

This vibrant narrative takes these dramatic personalities and evokes the engagement between Europe and a reluctant America from September 3, 1939—when Britain declares war—through the tragedy of Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Robert Lyman's distinctively energetic storyline brings together a wide range of encounters, conversations, and memories, including individuals from across the social spectrum, from Josephine Baker to the young Americans who volunteered to fight in the RAF, as part of the famous “Eagle Squadrons.”

Hundreds of young Americans—like the aces James Goodison, Art Donahue, and the wealthy playboy Billy Fiske—smuggled themselves into Canada so that they could volunteer for the cockpits of Spitfires and Hurricanes, as they flew against the deadly Luftwaffe over ever-darkening skies in London.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681777368
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	11/06/2018
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 5.90(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Robert Lyman is the author of numerous books, including Among the Headhunters and The Real X-Men. Widely regarded as one of Britain's most talented historians, he is a former officer in the British Army and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He lives in Berkshire, England.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Dramatis Personae xxi

1 "Nazi Germany Means War" 1

2 Paris in Springtime 25

3 The Gathering Storm 44

4 "A Long, Agonizing Illness" 71

5 The Ninety Percent 94

6 Le Drôle De Guerre 109

7 The Offensive in the West 124

8 Escape from Paris 146

9 Eagles at Dawn 172

10 Blitz 184

11 Occupation 208

12 Mesdames Pimpernels 224

13 Berlin 240

14 London 263

Epilogue 287

Appendix: Program of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, Munich, February 24, 1920 291

A Guide to Further Reading 297

Index 303

Editorial Reviews

★ 12/03/2018
Historian Lyman (Among the Headhunters: An Extraordinary World War II Story of Survival in the Burmese Jungle) uses the firsthand accounts of students, housewives, academics, journalists, businesspeople, and others to provide a clear and unsettling account of the North Americans who warned of Nazi Germany before Hitler declared war on the U.S. Appeasement by the leadership of Western Europe and U.S. isolationism predominated in the 1930s, but information about Nazi violence and expansionist ambitions was conveyed by people such as New York Herald Tribune reporter Leland Snowe, who published a prescient, widely ignored 1933 book entitled Nazi Germany Means War. Other Americans who saw the Nazi threat early on included singer Josephine Baker, who aided the French Secret Service, as well as many now-obscure figures, such as Arthur Donahue, who, as a member of the RAF, became “the first American to engage enemy aircraft during the Second World War.” The compilation validates Lyman’s contention that the experiences of individuals “looking at history as it is made... offer in their accumulation an interpretation of events as valuable as... specialist historical accounts” and effectively rebuts those who still assert that no one could have foreseen WWII. This is a well-constructed, valuable alternative to military-focused histories of the time. Agent: Charlie Viney, Viney Shaw Agency. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Lyman brings the skills of a born storyteller and the erudition of an historian to this wonderful book. It is a gripping and immensely humane book.

Fergal Kane

Lyman’s expertise shows through in the book's smooth prose and clear storytelling.

WWII History Magazine [Praise from Robert Lyman's Among the Headhunters]

A wonderfully gripping and life-affirming story of World War II. Beautifully written and researched, it is both highly relevant and a testimony to the power of the human spirit.

James Holland

An extraordinary story of the sudden confrontation of two civilizations. It is excellently told, exciting, vivid, and moving.

Alan MacFarlane

2018-09-17

Historical study of American expatriates and travelers—George Kennan, Eric Sevareid, Josephine Baker, and many more—in the dawning years of World War II.

If most Americans were murky on the details of Hitler's regime until after the United States entered the fight in 1941, some had very specific information gleaned from close-up study: journalists, diplomats, scholars, writers, artists, and others who found themselves in Europe in the late 1930s. British historian Lyman (Among the Headhunters: An Extraordinary World War II Story of Survival in the Burmese Jungle, 2016, etc.) populates his pages with some of the better known of them, including William L. Shirer, who, as a Berlin correspondent, witnessed the Nazi regime's rise to power, and Martha Gellhorn, who tracked fascism as she traveled through Europe. Others are now perhaps less well known to general readers, such as Janet Flanner, who was in Austria at the time of the Anschluss and marveled at how deliberately anti-Semitic laws were put into place. "Jewish doctors and lawyers were slowly being deprived of their right to practice," writes the author, "although for the time being Flanner was still able to buy from Jewish shops, many of which continued to trade." Flanner turns up later in the book, now in Paris, where she further marveled at the efficiency of the Nazi machine, thanks to "the German passion for bureaucracy." The most compelling parts of Lyman's portraits of Americans in Europe in the time of what Churchill called "the gathering storm" concern people most readers will not have heard of, such as the Quaker aid worker Leonard Kenworthy, whose dreams were haunted by the faces of the Jews whom he could not save after the Nazi deportations began. "Quaker diligence, faithfulness, hard work, and prayer came to nothing in the face of Nazi indifference to their fate," the author concludes.

Lyman's book does not supplant Shirer's firsthand accounts or Flanner's and Gellhorn's reports from the field, but it makes a useful supplement.

Kirkus Reviews