Ralph Blackman grew up knowing that his father flew bombing missions in World War II in the Pacific. However, it wasn’t until he discovered his father’s diary that he would uncover the extent of his father’s heroism.

Just past midnight on September 30, 1944, 73 B24 Liberators lined up in single file to take off every minute and a half into the pitch black night over the Pacific. Their mission was to strike the Balikpapan oil fields and refinery in Borneo that supplied 70% of Japan’s aviation fuel. Timed to arrive at daylight so the bombers could swoop down out of the sun, the brave crews flew 18 hours – nearly 2,400 miles – the longest mission launched in the South Pacific Theatre at that time. Ralph’s father, as he would come to discover, was one of the brave airmen on the mission that night. Battling intense anti-aircraft fire, swarms of Japanese fighters and the uncertainty of making it back home alive, this is the story of the brave airmen behind the raid that defied the odds and sacrificed everything in the name of their country, their families and the mission that would ultimately account for the heaviest losses from a single operation ever announced by the Far East Air Force.