The Mighty Eighth : The Air War in Europe as Told by the Men Who Fought It
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| The Mighty Eighth : The Air War in Europe as Told by the Men Who Fought It | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Europe has fallen. Pearl Harbor is in flames. Enter: the Eighth.
In 1941 the RAF fought a desperate battle of survival against the Luftwaffe over Britain. Then, from across the Atlantic, came a new generation of American pilots, gunners, and bombardiers, a new generation of flying machines called the B-17 Flying Fortress, the B-24 Liberator, the P-47 Thunderbolt, and the P-51 Mustang fighter. Soon these brave young men were hurtling themselves and their unproven planes across the Channel and into the teeth of enemy firepower, raining down bombs on the German military machine, and going up against Hitler's best fliers in the sky. This is the dramatic oral history of the Army Air Corps and the newly created Eighth Air Force stationed in Britain, an army of hard-fighting, hard-playing flying men who suffered more fatalities than the entire U.S. Marine Corps in the Pacific campaign of World War II. Here, in their own words, are tales of survival and soul-numbing loss, of soldiers who came together to fight a kind of war that had never been fought before--and win it with their courage and their blood. But the road to victory was paved with sacrifice. From its inaugural mission on July 4, 1942, until V-E Day, the Eighth Air Force lost more men than did the entire United States Marine Corps in all its campaigns in the Pacific. The Mighty Eighth chronicles the testimony of the pilots, bombardiers, navigators, and gunners who daily put their lives on the line. Their harrowing accounts recall the excitement and terror of dogfights against Nazi aces, maneuvering explosive-laden aircraft through deadly flak barrages, and fending off waves of enemy fighters while coping with subzero temperatures. Beginning with the opening salvos from a mere dozen planes, crewmen describe the raids on Berlin and Dresden, the fiasco at Ploesti, Romania, and Black Thursday over Schweinfurt. They fell to the terror of seeing aircraft destroyed--helplessly watching as comrades crash and burn, or parachute over enemy territory, where they will attempt to evade enemy capture through the underground. Others tell of mourning downed airmen murdered by vengeful citizens and soldiers, and of those who endured captivity in POW camps. --> |
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| Reader Reviews Below Sorted by Newest First | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 06-02-07 | 4 | (NA) |
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This is a really well written, easy to read, book about the daylight bombing campaign against the Third Reich. In a relatively condensed book, Gerald Astor manages to trace the story of the Eighth Airforce's campaign from the abortive 6 plane raid on the Dutch Coast through VE Day. He does this, as he does in his other works, not through a dry recitation of facts and data, but by stringing together accounts from individual fighting men to paint a picture of the overall situation. The result is an nail biting account of heroism from the man in the cockpit, turret, or Luftstalag that still conveys the ebb and flow of the battle for aerial supremacy over Europe.
The author even manages to fit in life from the perspective of the POWs. Here one of the most heroic, but little known, acts of World War Two took place. Francis Gabreski is fairly well known as one of America's leading aces of the ETO. As a POW however, is where Gabreski's real courage shines most brightly in his response to his N*zi interrogators request that the Americans give their captors a list of which of their prisoners were Jews. His response deserves a place among the proudest moments of American military history. The only downside to this little book is the lack of maps or diagrams that might have put the campaign into focus for people who are unfamiliar with it. Regardless of this shortcoming, however, the book is still an excellent choice for the casual reader of WWII history because of it's readability, organization, and exciting writing style. (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-09-07 03:49:09 EST)
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| 06-02-07 | 4 | 1\1 |
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This is a really well written, easy to read, book about the daylight bombing campaign against the Third Reich. In a relatively condensed book, Gerald Astor manages to trace the story of the Eighth Airforce's campaign from the abortive 6 plane raid on the Dutch Coast through VE Day. He does this, as he does in his other works, not through a dry recitation of facts and data, but by stringing together accounts from individual fighting men to paint a picture of the overall situation. The result is an nail biting account of heroism from the man in the cockpit, turret, or Luftstalag that still conveys the ebb and flow of the battle for aerial supremacy over Europe.
The author even manages to fit in life from the perspective of the POWs. Here one of the most heroic, but little known, acts of World War Two took place. Francis Gabreski is fairly well known as one of America's leading aces of the ETO. As a POW however, is where Gabreski's real courage shines most brightly in his response to his N*zi interrogators request that the Americans give their captors a list of which of their prisoners were Jews. His response deserves a place among the proudest moments of American military history. The only downside to this little book is the lack of maps or diagrams that might have put the campaign into focus for people who are unfamiliar with it. Regardless of this shortcoming, however, the book is still an excellent choice for the casual reader of WWII history because of it's readability, organization, and exciting writing style. (Review Data Last Updated: 2008-07-04 21:57:30 EST)
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| 01-25-04 | 5 | 2\4 |
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Out of all the World War Two books that I've read, this one is by far the greatest of them all. Gerald Astor takes you into the cockpit of a P-51 Mustang, the pilot's seat of a B-17 and the cold prison camps of Nazi Germany. I could not put this book down. This is a book written from the experiences of the men who were actually there. The men of the 8th Air Force are indeed heroes, and this is their story. Thank God for these men. BUY THIS BOOK!!!
(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-03 20:01:26 EST)
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| 01-26-03 | 5 | 1\2 |
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A must read before anything else to under stand how the air force operated,the back ground infomation the personal, bases, men, equipment, the stories I had read with unfamilar terms and such all came into a clear light of understanding after reading this book.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-03 20:01:26 EST)
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| 08-23-02 | 4 | 2\2 |
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Astor has done an incredible job with this book. His sources are sound and it's incredibly readable as well. The best part of this book is the fact that Astor uses so many incidents and details from the members of the 8th AF themselves. He really makes the reader care about the people he writes about and the entire 8th AF as a whole. Unlike other books he also brings the horror of even the air war to life. A reader vividly gets the feel that while the war on the ground was worse, the air war was no picinic either.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-03 20:01:26 EST)
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| 08-22-02 | 4 | 2\2 |
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Astor has done an incredible job with this book. His sources are sound and it's incredibly readable as well. The best part of this book is the fact that Astor uses so many incidents and details from the members of the 8th AF themselves. He really makes the reader care about the people he writes about and the entire 8th AF as a whole. Unlike other books he also brings the horror of even the air war to life. A reader vividly gets the feel that while the war on the ground was worse, the air war was no picinic either.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-02-06 22:12:37 EST)
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| 05-02-02 | 3 | 4\9 |
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I just started this, am about 25 pages in, & have found a couple of glaring errors already. I hope things improve, since I bought this after reading a number of reviews, such as the preceeding ones. BTW, Douglas Bader did NOT "lose his legs in the Battle Of Britain".
(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-03 20:01:26 EST)
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| 12-06-01 | 5 | 4\4 |
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Gerald Astor has a gift. Period.
His ability to make the reader FEEL what it was like to be in a B-17, under fire, cold, and far from home...is simply amazing. I have never read an account of the air war that made me truly understand what it must have been like to actually be there. While Astor managed to stick to facts and figures. He also managed to bring to life the very experience of flying over Germany. His ability to describe and bring a story to life surpasses Ambrose...without a doubt. (and I am an enormous fan of Ambrose) (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-03 20:01:26 EST)
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| 12-05-01 | 5 | 4\4 |
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Gerald Astor has a gift. Period.
His ability to make the reader FEEL what it was like to be in a B-17, under fire, cold, and far from home...is simply amazing. I have never read an account of the air war that made me truly understand what it must have been like to actually be there. While Astor managed to stick to facts and figures. He also managed to bring to life the very experience of flying over Germany. His ability to describe and bring a story to life surpasses Ambrose...without a doubt. (and I am an enormous fan of Ambrose) (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-02-06 22:12:37 EST)
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| 10-27-01 | 5 | 9\9 |
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The bold US Air Corps policy of daylight strategic bombing deep into Nazi territory proved deadly, unfortunately it was deadly on both sides.
Bold is too tame a word to describe the incredible devotion to duty exhibited on almost every mission of the Mighty Eighth bomber force. For maximum results, bombing accuracy was exchanged for planes and lives. They bombed during broad daylight, they took no evasive action on a bomb run and not until late in the air campaign would there be pursuit escorts over enemy territory. The bombers became sitting ducks for flak and easy pickings for enemy fighters. I had two uncles, both dead now, who were gunners on bombers in the Mighty Eighth. I never could get them to tell me much about it, but now we have this book to give us details of what fliers endured. I learned a lot from this book and plan to read it again soon. The personal oral history format exposes you to several different viewpoints, often on the same incident. Coming to England in the nick of time to bolster the battered and exhausted R.A.F., these fliers were not all the stereotypical egomaniacs I had seen portrayed in countless films. In this book I met salesmen, farmers, college students, high school ROTC Cadets, engineers and mechanics who all loved their country and loved to fly. Certainly there were some hotshots in the mix, but most fliers just wanted to kill all the Germans they could. Shooting down a ME190 with a waist mounted .50 caliber machine gun after dropping a full load of bombs on a Nazi synthetic fuel refinery suited them just fine. I learned that just simply finding your home field in the fog could be as big a gamble as flying through a German flak barrage surrounding your primary target. This is a great companion piece to "Band of Brothers" and both of those "The Greatest Generation" books. All these books give you first person accounts weaved into the author's narrative. In this book though, the weave is almost seamless making this a thoroughly enjoyable yet enlightening read chapter after chapter. A superb job of editing with just the right amount of historical perspective. Now if we can only focus Mr. Astor's attention on the Pacific! (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-02-06 22:12:37 EST)
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