From Introduction: "The lack of comparable and accurate statistics of coal-mine accidents in the united States as a whole led the Bureau of Mines in 1911 to undertake the collection of such data. The mining departments of the leading foreign coal-producing countries have long taken cognizance of the importance of statistics. The bureau feels that in presenting the tables embodied in this report it is offering the and comparable statistics of coal-min accidents for the country as a whole that have ever been published."

Interview with Robert Seidel, a Army Air Force WWII veteran from Elkhart, Indiana, who served in the 763rd Bomb Squadron in the European Theater. Accompanied by his wife Helen, Seidel discusses his family, the start of the war and joining the Air Corps, training as a flight engineer, assignment to the B-24 and deployment to Spinazzola, Italy, flying combat missions, life at the base, ditching his aircraft near Salzburg and getting captured, being interrogated, internment at Stalag Luft IV, liberation, and returning to the US. In appendix are three photos of Seidel, his B-24 crew, and their aircraft, Seidel's papers from when he was a German prisoner, his POW log book, the official narrative report of the mission he was lost on, and a letter from his family while he was in Italy.