Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany  Audible Audiobook – Unabridged
Donald L. Miller (Author), Joe Barrett (Narrator)
At nearly 700 pages, 25 hours in audiobook, an exhaustive read.
And if The Battle of Britain highlights the Canadian flyers who participated and Bomber highlights British efforts this book and the TV Series based upon it is Rah! Rah! American. Having sat on their assets it took the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbour to make them bestir themselves.
After the introductory section the pilot of the Memphis Belle describes their crew's first mission beginning with a tour of each position in the cramped interior of the plane.
There were prices to be paid for bombing at 25,000 ft to avoid flak in unheated and unpressurized planes. Changes in air pressure affected the ears and caused bloating. Intense cold caused frost bite and touching metal with bare skin caused instant freezing. Blockage of oxygen feeds caused unconsciousness in 30 seconds and death in 2 minutes. Medical science was not prepared to deal with these complications.
There's a long list of reporters who were permitted fly-alongs as well as movie stars all of whom received mandatory machine gun training. The director of Memphis Belle flew with the Belle.
As Americans flooded into new bases built to accommodate them little villages were overwhelmed as the local population soared. Airman descended on one village pub and buying rounds for the house drank it dry.
The success of any particular raid was a matter of perspective. One that destroyed the target and resulted in the loss of more enemy planes than their own was a win for Air Command, to the flyer who returned to find his bunk mate's bed stripped and empty not so much.
The treatment of POW's shot down over Germany is a sore topic. Measures taken to bring the war to an end after D-Day make less than glorious history. The British fire-bombing of Dresden a case in point. It is argued that Hitler's decision to bomb civilian rather than military targets was instrumental in his losing the war.
And we are treated to an extensive analysis of the effectiveness with which the campaign was waged. The butcher's bill certainly; the cost of errors in judgment a contributing factor. Politics and diplomacy no small component. Hindsight always being 20:20.
The final hours document the desperate measures taken by their enemies to prevent the encroaching enemy forces liberating American POWs. These were the enemies that had bombed their cities and killed their people. Fear of what would happen to their own POWs on Allied soil the only restraint.
To say that this all makes depressing reading would be an understatement. Finally the liberation of the death camps and the prison camps arrives with some stickiness in the Russian Sector. The final unsatisfying revenge came with the Nuremberg Trials. The Simon Wiesenthal Centre are searching out 90 yr olds to this day.
[Any of this would be spoilers only to those who haven't studied history. Of course there have been US Presidents who attacked countries they couldn't have found on a map.]
