Solitary

Giora Romm was the Israeli Air Force's first fighter ace. As a twenty-two-year-old lieutenant he shot down five MiGs during the Six Day War of 1967. Fourteen months later over the Nile Delta, an Egyptian missile exploded beneath the tail of his Mirage IIIC. Within moments Romm found himself hanging by the straps of his parachute, with a broken arm and a leg shattered in a dozen places, looking down from 10,000 feet. Streams of farmers and field workers converged below onto the spot toward which his chute was descending, with the intention, he was certain, of hacking him to death as soon as his feet touched the earth. No other Israeli pilot had survived capture in Egypt or in any other Arab state. Solitary is Romm's story of his imprisonment, torture, interrogation, release, and return to service.