Paratrooper Joseph Beyrle did not strive to be a part of history, but history kept visiting him. He was the first American paratrooper to land in Normandy and the only soldier to fight for both the United States and the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany. Twice before the invasion he parachuted into Normandy, bearing gold for the French resistance. D-Day resulted in his capture, when he was mistaken for a German line-crosser a soldier who had, in fact, died in the attempt. Eventually Joe was held under guard at the American embassy in Moscow, suspected of being a Nazi assassin. His fingerprints saved him, confirming that he'd been wounded five times and that he bore a safe-conduct pass written by Marshal Zhukov after the Wehrmacht had wrested Joe, at gunpoint, from execution by the Gestapo. In the ruins of Warsaw, his life was saved again this time by Polish nuns. Behind Hitler's Lines is told, in part, in Joe's own words a voice that will be among the last and best we hear firsthand from World War II.