ABOVE AND BEYOND

ABOVE AND BEYOND highlights one of the most compelling escape and survival stories from World War II — that of former Rhode Island Governor Bruce Sundlun (1920-2011). Sundlun, a U.S. Army Air Corps pilot, flew a B-17 bomber nicknamed the "Damn Yankee" on a dozen combat missions during World War II. On December 1, 1943, Sundlun's "unlucky" 13th mission would take him (a Jewish-American) and his crew into Hitler's backyard — the heart of Germany's industrial Ruhr Valley.

While on the mission, the bomber drew heavy fire from German fighter planes and crashed in a field in the Nazi-occupied Belgian town of Jabbeke. By nightfall, Sundlun remained the only member of his 10-man crew not killed or captured by the Germans. Muddied and bloodied, Sundlun eluded the Germans by hiding "in plain sight" — face down between a row of crops. He soon found refuge in a local farmhouse, his wounds tended by a local family. For the next several days, courageous Catholic priests and local members of the French Resistance sheltered Sundlun and provided him with fake identity papers.

With help from a vast underground network, Bruce fled to occupied France, where he joined the Resistance (under the code name "Salamander") and assisted them in their fight against the Nazis. Eventually smuggled into neutral Switzerland, Sundlun would spy for the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA, tasked with communicating with French Resistance and German officers looking to surrender.

The documentary unfolds as Sundlun's daughter Kara retraces his wartime journey. In Jabbeke, Kara meets author and local historian Luc Packo, as well as witnesses to her father's plane crash, who still celebrate Sundlun's contribution to their country's liberation.