Delayed Legacy
A Son's Amazing Search for the Full Story of His Father's Death After D-Day

$24.95
(hardcover)

224 pages, 6 x 9 inches, 19 illustrations, index
ISBN 1-893271-37-4

When the infant Conrad Netting received his late father�s Air Medal in a military ceremony in February 1945, it seemed to close the book on yet another tragedy of World War II. But what appeared to be closure was only a pause.

Katherine Netting became part of the �silent generation,� speaking little of the deep anguish left by her husband�s death when his fighter plane crashed in Normandy four days after D-Day. Married the year before, Lt. Conrad John Netting III so hoped the baby due in a month would be a boy that he had Conjon IV painted near the nose of his P-51.

Conrad John Netting IV grew up in San Antonio with limited knowledge of his father�s military service. But after his mother died in 1993, a footlocker turned up, carefully packed with wartime records and mementos that provided her son with almost as many questions as answers. He had pieced much of the story together by the time a large envelope arrived from France. The sender hoped that Conrad might be related to a Lieutenant Netting whose strafing saved the writer�s village. A memorial was planned, but villagers knew little of the pilot. Details of what they did know were enclosed.

An exchange of phone calls and e-mails quickly followed. Lieutenant Netting�s plane had crashed after strafing a convoy of enemy trucks. The letter writer�s father was the son of the village carpenter, who had pulled the pilot�s body from the plane and built his coffin against the strict orders of the German Army. The parish priest conducted a secret funeral. There was more.

�The Son of the Pilot and the Son of the Woodworker,� read the headline in one French newspaper covering the dedication of the memorial in Saint-Michel-des-Andaines in 2002 and the gathering of the two families �in memory of the courage of their fathers.� Readers were assured in the lead sentence: �This is not a fable, but a true story.�

Delayed Legacy is part love story, part wartime thriller, part coming-of-age struggle. The book is also a compelling real-life reminder that the human story is not over when a war ends.

Maverick Publishing Company
P. O. Box 6355, San Antonio, Texas 78209
210-828-5777, FAX 210-828-7874
email info@maverickpub.com