Delayed Steal and On Falcon's Wings by Marshall Umpleby

Synopsis: On Falcon's Wings

On Falcon’s Wings is the heart-breaking story of five teenagers in Prague, Czechoslovakia, during World War II whose lives are unalterably changed when resistance commandos assassinate Gestapo General Reinhard Heydrich in 1942.

In retaliation for the assassination Hitler orders the execution of thousands of Czech patriots and the total destruction of the tiny village of Lidice. The men are summarily executed; the women and children sent to death camps.

In the tragic aftermath of the assassination the boys are kidnapped by German soldiers and sent by troop train through the Ukraine to the Eastern Front to dig anti-tank trenches, find safe passage through mine fields, or perform whatever tasks their captors order them to do. Realizing that they will most likely be killed by the Russians or by the Germans or by accident, some of the teenagers manage to escape.

During their perilous journey home, the boys are rescued by partisans, brutalized by Nazis, and aided by sympathetic Ukrainians. Scarred and traumatized, the boys who survive the harrowing trip back to Czechoslovakia must search for their loved ones and rebuild their lives in war-ravaged Prague.