Click Here To Purchase Boxcar Down 

Author: Charles L. Lunsford

Publisher: BookSurge

ISBN: 1-4196-1713-3 

Boxcar Down is one of the most exiting and hard-to-put-down novels I have had the honor to read in a very long time.  It seems that many writers—especially the better known authors—have begun to put out books for the money, with little to no interest in quality work.  Just something to fill the pages, allowing their name to get the book sold to an unsuspecting public.  Not so Boxcar Down.  This is one book that will hold your interest from the very beginning to the edge-of-your-chair ending. 

Lunsford’s first book—Departure Message—is an informational prelude (very interesting information, I might add) to his Boxcar Down.  It helps you to understand what makes the young radio operators of the early fifties USAF tick. 

In Boxcar Down you will go along for the ride as young Jimmy Wilson, radio operator for USAF 37844, tries in vain to correct the obnoxious navigator who insists on following his wrongfully plotted course.  A course that sets the stage for the disastrous flight of an American C-119—the infamous ‘flying box car.’ 

Very shortly into the flight, the C-119, its crew, and a courier carrying an attaché containing some type of top-secret files are hopelessly lost over the communist country of Albania.  Within minutes their plane is locked on by a Russian surface-to-air weapon that has orders to shoot down any unknown aircraft flying over their territory.

At the first realization that their aircraft has been hit and most certainly going down behind unfriendly borders, young Jimmy scurries to help the other crew members prepare for the inevitable crash of their crippled plane.  You can feel the terrible terror that all these men feel as they fight the out-of-control aircraft as it continuously loses altitude. 

Will any of the men survive the crash?  And if so, will they manage to evade the communist Albanians and Russians that are surely watching and waiting as the aircraft plummets to the rugged terrain below?  At the command of the pilot to “Bail Out!”  Jim fights against an enormous vacuum-like force to get himself into the laundry chute that would allow him to drop free of the dying plane and parachute to possible safety—praying that the others would make it out too.

As he slowly floated down, Jim looked around him for other parachutes but saw none.

In the distance he witnessed the fiery explosion of what had been USAF 3-7844, and the great flying boxcar was down.  His heart was in his throat as he thought about his fellow crewmen and prayed they had all gotten out—then he saw it: another parachute already dropping into the trees below him. 

If you enjoy the reading excitement of adventure, spine-tingling suspense, and danger with a spattering of humor and romance, Boxcar Down, has it all.  Well written with lovable and realistic characters, this book will win your heart and fill your senses with a message emanating from the brave young men of a time and occupation all but forgotten. 

A ‘must read’ from every sense of the word.