In 1942, Bealer married his high school sweetheart, Nell. The next year, at the age of 21, with WWII raging, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps. He served as a Radio Gunner aboard a B-17 Flying Fortress. He was assigned to the 8th Air Corps, the 100th Bomber Group (ominously nicknamed "The Bloody Hundredth").
On August 5, 1944, his crew's luck ran out, as they were struck by flak and had to bail out over Magdeburg, Germany, where he was captured and remained a POW for the duration of the War.
This is a memoir of his harrowing experience.