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Fighting at 25,000 feet in thin, freezing air that no warriors had ever encountered before, bomber crews battled new kinds of assaults on body and mind. Air combat was deadly but intermittent: periods of inactivity and anxiety were followed by short bursts of fire and fear. Unlike infantrymen, bomber boys slept on clean sheets, drank beer in local pubs, and danced to the swing music of Glenn Miller's Air Force band, which toured U.S. air bases in England. But they had a much greater chance of dying than ground soldiers. In 1943, an American bomber crewman stood only a one-in-five chance of surviving his tour of duty, twenty-five missions. The Eighth Air Force lost more men in the war than the U.S. Marine Corps.

The bomber crews were an elite group of warriors who were a microcosm of America -- white America, anyway. (African-Americans could not serve in the Eighth Air Force except in a support capacity.) The actor Jimmy Stewart was a bomber boy, and so was the "King of Hollywood," Clark Gable. And the air war was filmed by Oscar-winning director William Wyler and covered by reporters like Andy Rooney and Walter Cronkite, all of whom flew combat missions with the men.The Anglo-American bombing campaign against Nazi Germany was the longest military campaign of World War II, a war within a war. Until Allied soldiers crossed into Germany in the final months of the war, it was the only battle fought inside the German homeland.

Strategic bombing did not win the war, but the war could not have been won without it. American airpower destroyed the rail facilities and oil refineries that supplied the German war machine. The bombing campaign was a shared enterprise: the British flew under the cover of night while American bombers attacked by day, a technique that British commanders thought was suicidal.

Masters of the Air is a story, as well, of life in wartime England and in the German prison camps, where tens of thousands of airmen spent part of the war. It ends with a vivid description of the grisly hunger marches captured airmen were forced to make near the end of the war through the country their bombs destroyed.

Drawn from recent interviews, oral histories, and American, British, German, and other archives, Masters of the Air is an authoritative, deeply moving account of the world's first and only bomber war.

Average Customer Rating:

War is Hell

Customer Rating:

A friend of mine was returning this book to its owner when I intercepted it. I have always been fascinated with the air war of WW2 and this book promised to give me a lot of insight into the air war over Europe. It did that in spades, almost to the point that I began to wonder if I really wanted to learn about all that went on, as the real history of this period is seriously depressing when one looks at the ravages of war on the scale of WW2. At times, I wondered if Miller had an ulterior motive in writing this book to make it a definitive anti-war account, but I have come to the conclusion that war is often such disorganized Hell that it makes that point by itself without any prodding from an author that is trying to tell about it. It is easy from the distance of time to romanticize the "bomber boys" of WW2, but there is little in those years that is truly romantic while there is much to admire about the bravery of those on both sides who waged the war with little expectation that they would live to see it's end. This is a sobering a review of the madness that was the air war in Europe told both interestingly and frankly as you are likely to find and it should be required reading by all who seek knowledge from those times.

A Masterful Job

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One of the better books you will find on the 8th Air Force. The author covers every facet of the strategies and actual operations of the 8th. Even though the reader may not always agree with his conclusions and opinions, in most cases, the author makes a strong case in his favor. His compelling descriptions of the hardships the flight crews suffered makes the reader contemplate whether or not they could have performed those same tasks under those conditions. The later portion of the book does a fine job of covering the hardships of POWs towards the end of the war. This book is definitely a "keeper" and should find a favored spot in your library.

Unvarnished history of the US Army's Eighth Air Force

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Donald Miller produced a well-documented and frequently harrowing account of the history of the US Army 8th Air Force, the first US Army unit to engage in combat with elements of Nazi Germany during WWII. When the vanguard of the 8th Air Force arrived in Britain the RAF was carrying out a night bombing campaign against targets in Nazi occupied Europe. In this book you will read about strategic and tactical differences of opinion between the RAF and leadership of the US Army 8th Air Force. The 8th came to Britain to join in the fight with Germany, but in a way that had never before been attempted - high-level, precision, daylight, strategic bombing designed to deliver a knock-out blow to the industrial and economic centers of Nazi occupied Europe. If you are like me, and have read different accounts of the war in Europe in WWII including accounts of the air war, you, like me, may have accepted the general conclusion that the daylight bombing campaign of the 8th was not only effective, but decisive. Miller's account, however, provides a rich and focused account of the risks, challenges, successes, and failures of the 8th which provide readers with a reason to revisit their opinions about the 8th's ability to carry out precision bombing. Miller uses many, many personal accounts from individuals who were members of flight crews, ground crews, and members of command staffs as he weaves his historical account of the 8th. I was repeatedly impressed, deeply impressed, by the heroism, grit, and determination of men who climbed again and again into bombers heading to the air war over continental Europe. Time and again I had to stop reading and re-read passages of the book out loud to my wife who was likewise awed by the terrible conditions of battle and inspired by the bravery of the men in those bombers. In the heading for this review I use the word "unvarnished." That's not because there is undue use of profanity, but because the account presented by Miller details the conditions encountered in the air: fighter attacks, flack, extreme cold, constant stress, and other challenges associated with the WWII bomber air war. The account is also "unvarnished" because of the direct and candid description of the challenges in carrying out precision bombing...which from many accounts was not as precise as we may have been led to believe. This book was outstanding. If you are interested in the military history of WWII in general, and of the air war in specific, then you will greatly enjoy this book. 5 stars all the way!

Greatest review of the 8th AAF I have ever read!

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I'm sure I have read over 50 books dealing with the 8th AAF but never one this indepth and far reaching and so filled with a roller coster of emotions. My father (Bombardier, 95th BG H) flew 25 missions (four over Berlin)and reading this put me right in the plane with him and at home with his crew and their feelings. What I never knew about the air crews interned and the Swiss was very revealing. So too was the background on the formation of the 8th and the strategy from start to finish. Having flown in a B-17 (EAA) I was able to put myself in a position to at least think I could feel some of the excitment of the aircraft during takeoff and landing as I read. It also gave me a greater understanding of what it must have been to be so cramped up during the missions. The interviews and research done for this book was fantastic and would serve as the basis for a great movie. I'm saddened more veterans of the 8th are not around to read this book and recall the good and bad of their missions and their impact on history. As I read I compared much of what was in the book about the 95th with the book left by my father, Contrails, the 95th Group which confirmed many actions described. I ordered three more copies of Masters of the Air for friends. (One of which flew the Polesti raid and was an original member of the 100th having served as a member of the RAF prior to our entry into the war). No other book I have ever read can come close to the enjoyment and education offered by this author. If you are truly interested in one of the most complete overviews of the European airwar as well as the 8th AF you cannot overlook reading this book!

Military history-writing at it finest

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My father served in the Eighth Air Force during World War Two, and his experience during that time overshadowed all of the other things that he did during a long life filled with civilian accomplishment. It wasn't that he was uninterested in his civilian life; it was just that he never again felt that he was engaged in an effort as compelling or important as the work that he did during the war years. Donald Miller's book sheds ample light on why my father felt that way. My father raised me as a boy who built airplane models and was familiar with the basic story of WWII. But he was unable to convey the reason that his wartime experience held him in its emotional grip for almost 60 years after V-E Day. Donald Miller's majestic history supplies the emotional linkage, and supports it with a wealth of factual detail. This is a majestic work of history-writing. It is based on thorough and scholarly research, but it is written with an eye for the human side of the subject matter. Before reading this book, I did not grasp the grim statistics of Eighth Air Force warfare: more combat deaths than were suffered by the entire United States Marine Corps, and a 34% casualty rate---the highest of any of the American armed forces. But Miller's book is not about statistics. It tells the fascinating story of the theoretical origins of strategic bombing, and the enormous, bloody gap---for both aviators and civilians on the ground---between theory and practice. This is not a book for WWII buffs or aviation enthusiasts. It is a lavishly researched and beautifully written study, richly embellished with detail and anecdote. It makes for very compelling reading---just in time, as the last veterans of the Mighty Eighth Air Force fade away.