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by David C. Smith (Author), Hugh Wray McCann (Author)
Johnny Nicholas had many faces. To some he was "Major John Nicholas," a downed black American pilot who parachuted into France on a secret intelligence mission. To others he was a key player in the French Resistance and a doctor who'd set up a practice in Paris as a cover for his clandestine activities. At a well built 6 feet, he was a bon vivant who loved the high life, and a film producer with a penchant for boldly thumbing his nose at the Nazis in World War II Paris. To Florence, his blonde girlfriend, he was an enigma who cheated on her; she betrayed him to her German handlers. Nicholas was arrested by the Gestapo and wound up in 1943 in Buchenwald as a slave laborer, later working with thousands of other prisoners to hollow out a secret underground plant under construction at Camp Dora where V-1 and V-2 rocket bombs were built. He was the only black and only "American" at Dora. Who was Johnny Nicholas and how did he survive four death sentences? What was his real mission and ultimate fate? More than 20 years and 600 contacts worldwide have gone into The Search for Johnny Nicholas, the dramatic untold story of an unsung hero. "What an interesting character Nicholas was! As enigmatic as he seemed I kept rooting for him throughout the book. He seemed to fill his roles perfectly and managed to succeed at everything he tried. While he was a loner he seemed to always be doing something to help someone else. I thought that the "eulogy" at the end of the book was very appropriate for him. I imagine that there were many such heroic people in WWII who were never recognized for what they did to help stop the Axis countries and the Nazi killing machine." --Jerry Bricker, Aadvise Consulting, LLC
