Americans in a World at War: Intimate Histories from the Crash of Pan Am’s Yankee Clipper

In this unique snapshot of American involvement in WWII, Boston University historian Blower (Becoming Americans in Paris) profiles seven of the 39 people aboard Pan American Airways’ Yankee Clipper, the world’s largest commercial aircraft at the time, when it crash-landed in Lisbon’s Tagus River on Feb. 22, 1943, following a two-day island-hopping flight across the Atlantic from New York City. Five of Blower’s subjects were among the 24 passengers who lost their lives in the crash. They include Frank Cuhel, a silver medalist in track at the 1928 Amsterdam Summer Olympics; Tamara Drasin, a Ukrainian American Broadway star who debuted “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” in the 1933 musical Roberta; and a pair of businessmen who were accused of illegally trading with Axis powers. Delving into the lives of these strikingly cosmopolitan subjects, Blower highlights how, in the early to mid 20th century, Americans of very different social, cultural, and economic backgrounds forged international connections. With deep dives into the disparate corners of the globe—including the American Philippines, where Cuhel was based as a salesman of imported American goods in the 1920s and ’30s, and Ukraine, from which Drasin’s Jewish family escaped the pogroms of the 1910s—Blower evokes a nuanced, off-beat vision of the world in the lead-up to the war. It’s a satisfyingly fresh perspective on the era. (Aug.)