Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany by Donald L. Miller

Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Reviews

• 
  Boudewijn

  Update May 2017: this book is currently turned in an HBO series, produced by Spielberg and Hanks.
  
  This is an extensive read regarding the guys that were in the 8th air force and helped liberate Europe, including my country. I was awed by their adventures, stories and experiences that they had to endure in order to defeat the German Reich, particular the Luftwaffe.
  
  Donald L. Miller writes about a lot of things, the personal lives of the pilots, bombers and gunners, their relationship with the English people, their trips to Londen and the life in a German prison camp for example. All stories are accompanied by the personal tales of English and German people during the bomber campaign. An extra plus was for me the story about the way the Allies were treated in Switzerland (horribly) which I didn't know.
  
  The end of the book was a little bit emotional for me, it tells about Operation Chowhound (or Manna) which saved my grandparents lives during the German occupation. It reminded me that if it wasn't for these brave young men, I wouldn't been able to read this book.
  
  Thanks to all brave young men for liberating my country, and thank you mr. Miller for writing this beautiful book.
• 
  A.L. Sowards

  This book did an impressive job of covering the air war in Europe, focusing on the US Eighth Air Force, based in England. The parts I most enjoyed were the experiences of the bomber crews, but he also covered strategic air theory going into the war, the debates and decisions of those higher up, American/British relationships, and the view from the German side.
  
  Miller showed the ugly side of war—the results of fire-bombing, the intense mental strain the men were under, mistreatment of POWs and internees, and the huge cost of the air campaign. The statistic that most stood out to me was that the Eighth Air Force endured more fatalities than the entire US Marine Corp during the war. Miller also devoted time to questions of precision-bombing (well, trying to be precise) vs carpet bombing and the morality of bombing non-combatants.
  
  Along with the ugly side of war and the hard questions, he also showed amazing examples of cooperation between crew-members, endurance during difficult circumstances, and tremendous bravery as the men still flying got into their planes again and again and again.
  
  One of the questions raised is “was it worth it?” Early Air Corp leaders thought they could bomb Germany into submission, without an invasion. That theory was proved wrong, but I think it is fairly clear that the air war contributed significantly to the war’s end. It inhibited Germany’s ability to wage war, diverted German manpower and resources that would have otherwise been used elsewhere, and it’s doubtful D-day could have been pulled off if the Allies hadn’t achieved air superiority by June 1944.
  
  Miller bounced around a bit—chronologically and up and down the command chain. For the most part, he did a good job with this, but there were a few times when I thought it was a little jarring. But even with that, this was the most comprehensive WWII ETO air war book I’ve ever read (not that I’ve read a ton on the subject, but this wasn’t my first air war book). If it’s a subject you’re interested in, this book is well worth picking up.
• 
  Mike

  How do we compare this new arena of warfare, especially in 1943, to other battles? In 1943, an Eighth Air Force crewman had an 80% chance of dying, being wounded, captured or going missing before completing 25 missions. The bombers always got through, never stopped by the German defenders. This book tells the story of the Eighth Air Force in WWII magnificently. 5 Battle Stars all the way!
  
  If you want to understand the air war in WWII over Europe, this single volume will give you much of what you need. So many aspects of the war are covered, many areas I had little or no knowledge of. Mr. Miller keeps it interesting, never a dull moment. He begins with a concise explanation of the theories of this new dimension in warfare. Guilio Douhet and BGen Billy Mitchell are the famous proponents of airpower as a decisive new weapon, both men believed a sustained strategic campaign against the civilian infrastructure and population would mean a quicker victory and fewer casualties overall. Mr. Miller covers this theoretical grounding of airpower theory quickly and moves along to the important Air Corps Tactical School in Alabama. Here is where the theory of strategic bombing became dogma, where the foundation was laid for the “daylight precision bombing” campaign that would be so bloody.
  Mitchell and Douhet theories:
  
  For the first time in the history of modern armed conflict, civilians were singled out as deliberate military targets, not only because they were valuable producers, but also because they were easy to intimidate. Both Douhet and Mitchell were convinced that civilians lacked the fortitude to stand up to vertical warfare waged with high explosives, incendiaries, and poisonous gases, that generation’s equivalent, in terror-generating capacity, of atomic warfare. The evidence they had before them was the mass panic and terror in London and Cologne caused by World War I bombing attacks, air strikes far smaller than either of them envisioned in future wars. The new wars will be decided swiftly, Douhet argued, precisely because “the decisive blows will be directed at civilians, that element of the countries at war least able to sustain them.”
  
  Modern industrial states, they theorized, were highly vulnerable to air attack because their economies formed a delicate, interconnected fabric or web. A relentless precision bombing campaign needed to hit only those industries that made products, or supplied services, essential to almost all other industries. Destroy an enemy’s “choke points”—its steel, electric power, ball bearing, oil, and railroad industries—and its entire war economy would collapse, making continued military resistance untenable.
  
  Miller confronts the morality of the bombing campaign directly. The men knew what they were doing:
  
  Perhaps some of the men remembered the warning that their first commander, Col. Darr H. “Pappy” Alkire, had given them back in the States, right after they completed flight training and received their wings. “Don’t get the notion that your job is going to be glorious or glamorous. You’ve got dirty work to do, and you might as well face the facts. You’re going to be baby-killers and women-killers.”
  
  Before the Americans started, the British had already tried daylight bombing with disastrous results. Churchill realizes the RAF can’t continue daylight bombing raids so he has to go at night. But technology did not allow precision at night (yet). The moral question about killing civilians is not a factor for the leaders of the RAF, “Bomber” Harris, or the USAAF, Ira Eaker. Throughout the book, Miller shows us what the men thought about killing from four miles high.
  
  “Berlin from the air was a huge, dark city,” recalled B-17 gunner Tommy LaMore, the descendant of a Cherokee family that had survived the Trail of Tears. “This was Hitler’s town. The big bad boys lived in this neighborhood....Go ahead, send the Luftwaffe up, go ahead, shoot at us with everything you’ve got, but here we are, blowing up your houses in front of your master-race eyeballs. I cheered when the bombs left the racks. ‘Hold on to your sauerkraut, Adolf!’ I yelled.”
  
  Even so, Harris was convinced that the American experiment (daylight precision bombing) would fail and that Eaker would eventually be forced to retrain his crews, reequip his bombers, and join the RAF in its night raids. “God knows, I hope you can do it,” he told Eaker, “but I don’t think you can. Come join us at night. Together we’ll lick them.”
  
  In his memoirs, James Parton recounts a famous story about Harris to illuminate a moral divide between the two commanders. Driving his Bentley at breakneck speed on one of his regular runs between London and High Wycombe, Harris was stopped by a motor policeman, who politely reprimanded him. “You might have killed someone, sir.”
  
  “Young man,” Harris snapped, “I kill thousands of people every night!”
  
  Far from being squeamish about killing civilians, “he relished it,” writes Parton. That may have been so, but the implication is misleading. Ira Eaker never opposed Harris’s raids out of concern for people under the bombs. “I don’t believe there was any moral consideration among military men [in World War II],” he remarked after the war. “When I watched bombs falling and hitting houses and churches I had a distaste for the whole business, but they were shooting at us.” If the atomic bomb had been available in 1942, and he had had authorization to use it, he would have dropped it on Germany with no reservations, he said.
  
  Eaker’s objections to area bombing were founded entirely upon military considerations—it was not the most efficient way of finishing off the enemy. Yet he did believe that area bombing, in conjunction with American precision bombing, would put Germany under intolerable, round-the-clock pressure, hastening its demise. He saw Harris’s operations as complementary to his own and considered him a partner, not a rival.
  
  There are many interesting areas in Miller’s history. He describes the quiet East Anglia countryside and what happens when the engineers flood the area, tearing up meadows, houses, hedges, etc to build the airstrips, bomb dumps and airbase facilities that will be needed. He also gives you a peek into the lives of the inhabitants of England and how their lives changed. Another area covered is how the USAAF black construction battalions were treated, racial incidents and how the English accepted the black Americans into their communities.
  
  Mostly the book deals with the bomb groups and their daily experience. Here is how the officers and the enlisted men found out they were scheduled to fly:
  
  There was no such thing as a typical mission. Every mission was unique, a singular experience, but there was a recognizable pattern in all of them. For the flight crews, a mission usually began with the sound of a jeep stopping outside their Nissen huts around 4:00 A.M. “A courtly staff sergeant wou1d come in and go to the officers’ bunks who were scheduled to fly,” recalled co-pilot Bernard Jacobs of the 384th Bomb Group, stationed at Grafton Underwood. “The enlisted men were billeted in another area. We would feign sleep until he stopped at our bunk and gave a tug on the arm. He would then say, ‘Good morning, sir. You and your [crew] will be flying number 6 in the low squadron, low group today. Breakfast at 4:30, briefing at5:15; takeoff at 6:15.’”
  
  The sergeant gunners were awakened with less propriety. “Drop your cocks and grab your socks, boys, you’re flying today,” an orderly would bellow, banging the heel of his hand on the hut’s low, corrugated steel roof.
  
  Throughout the book you will meet Heroes:
  
  No one who survived considered himself a hero. To draw attention to oneself was another violation of the unwritten crewmen’s code. It was hard to spot the real heroes. Men who carried out unimaginable acts of courage in the air would scream with fear in their sleep, or when awake, complain incessantly about the “chickenshit” Army, or announce to their friends, in beer-soaked conversations, that the only reason they flew and fought was to get a “ticket home.” Technical Sergeant Arizona T. Harris, a ranch hand from the desert town of Tempe, Arizona, hated almost everything about Air Force life, but he was a different man in the plane.
  
  Harris was a crew engineer and top turret gunner on a Flying Fortress and knew his aircraft better than anyone except its ground crew chief. When Sons of Fury taxied down the runway, the boys standing on the perimeter could easily spot it. A red head and a strong arm would poke out of the window next to the pilot. It was Harris giving the windshield one last wipe. “Them specks on the windshield get to look like Me 109s” in the air, he’d say.
  
  Harris met his end on the way back from St Nazaire on January 3, 1943. Sgt. P. D. Small, a tail gunner in another of the 306th’s bombers, observed Harris’s final minutes. Small saw four white parachutes snap open just before “Sons of Fury” hit the water. The gunners who remained on the ship must have gone to the radio room, the safest place to be in a crash. But two guns were still blazing, Harris’s twin .50s. Then “Sons of Fury” made a perfect belly landing in the freezing waters of the Bay of Biscay. As sheets of white water rolled over the wings and the plane began to drop out of sight, the top turret guns were still spitting flame “as fast as the feeding arms would pull the shells into the guns.” Arizona Harris was trying to protect the pilot and co-pilot, who were in the water and under fire from Fw 190s, “the steel gray sea boiling under the rain of bullets.” Harris must have felt the winter water fill his turret and climb to where it began to cut off his breath, yet he kept firing until the sea swallowed the hot muzzles of his guns.
  
  Jimmy Stewart stands ever higher in my eyes, a true American hero. No Hollywood actor of today could ever approach the stature of Maj Stewart:
  
  One of the Eighth’s finest squadron commanders was Maj James Maitland Stewart, a Princeton honors graduate known to all as Jimmy Stewart, the Hollywood movie idol. After being drafted in 1940 at age thirty-two, the rail-thin, six-foot-four son of an Indiana, Pennsylvania, hardware store merchant had tried to get into the Army Air Force but failed to meet the weight requirement for his height, 148 pounds, by five pounds. Desperately wanting to serve (he later called the draft “the only lottery I ever won”), he appealed the decision, over the heated protests of Louis B. Mayer, his dictatorial boss at MGM. After convincing an Air Force enlistment officer to give him a new test and “this time forget to weigh me,” entered military service as a private, signing his enlistment papers just days after winning an Oscar for his role as a reporter in The Philadelphia Story. “It may sound corny,” he later explained his decision, “but what’s wrong with wanting to fight for your country. Why are people so reluctant to use the word patriotism?”
  
  In November 1943 he arrived in England as a squadron commander with the 445th Bomb Group, a Liberator outfit stationed in Tibenham, just outside Norwich, in what was known to the men as B-24 Country. Three months later, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for holding his formation together under intense enemy pressure on the first day of Big Week. It was one of the twenty combat missions he would fly, not losing a single man to enemy fire or met breakdown.
  
  Watching him around base, the men of his 703rd Squadron could not believe how closely his real behavior matched his screen persona—getting things accomplished without dramatics and, in his small-town manner, calling the men “fellas,” urging them to write their “folks,” and peppering his speech, as he did in the movies, with “doggone’s” and’ gee whizze’s.”…
  
  Around the men he was “about as unemotional as you can get” Kriedler recalled, but the fliers respected his cool, measured leadership and quiet authenticity. Without any fanfare, “he skipped all the milk runs,” said John Harold “Robbie” Robinson, one of his squadron gunners, and the author of a powerful book about his wartime experiences. “High command didn’t like that.”
  
  Life in the UK definitely changed with the massive influx of well paid airmen and GI’s on the prowl:
  
  Seeing an opportunity here, Americans on the make treated their English dates like duchesses. “They opened doors for us, were ever so polite, and gave us their complete attention,” remembered a British woman, whereas our men would leave us alone at a table to shoot darts with their mates.”
  
  British males responded with humor “Heard about the new utility knickers? One Yank and they’re off.”
  
  Life in the Stalags for airmen shot down and captured is covered in some detail. Not only in German camps but also what happened to the bomber crews who landed in Switzerland.
  
  The Luftwaffe food was so bad that some new prisoners refused to eat it. A freshly arrived kriegie, a cocky captain wearing his officer’s hat at a “jaunty angle,” was assigned to Lou Loevsky’s combine. On his first evening in camp he stared at a foul-looking piece of meat and growled, “What the fuck is that?” Told it was sausage made from the blood of slaughtered animals, he pushed his portion aside and announced, “I’d sooner eat shit.” The following day he returned to the table, his stomach growling, pointed at the blutwurst, and said, “Please pass the shit.”
  
  The book is packed with solid information, always presented in fascinating ways, about the course of the war. The Bomber Mafia over-promised and under-delivered at almost every step, destroying their credibility. Only late in the war, with fighters that could escort the bombers, did the air forces start to achieve success. Going after the transportation systems and oil production proved to be the most effective targeting. Terror bombing, straight from Douhet’s theories proved ineffective. Hitler tried it in the Blitz, then the RAF tried it, the Germans tried again with the V-1 and V-2, and even the Americans resorted to it in early 1945. It never worked.
  
  Morale bombing failed to achieve both its aims. In a police state that prized industriousness and obedience, discouraged workers remained, on the whole, productive workers, if only out of fear or habit. And dissidence, when it appeared, became little more than powerless rage.
  
  What did the air barons who advocated morale bombing think the German people would do if and when their morale collapsed? Clearly, they had no idea. Germans of conscience, as well as those who came to their senses toward the end and admitted the futility of continuing the war, living in a society in which complaining people were hanged from lampposts by Nazi vigilantes for the crime of “defeatism.” As one worker said, “Rather than let them string me up I’ll be glad to believe in victory.”
  
  At the end, the forces the Allies had were staggering to contemplate. And so were the losses:
  
  Once the Anglo-American air forces reached full strength—a total of 28,000 combat aircraft—they were democracy’s terrible swift sword. Gathering in their immensity over the North Sea and the southern Alps, these air armadas released over two million tons of bombs on the Reich. The cost in lives lost was appalling. The Eighth Air Force, the largest aerial striking force in the war, sustained between 26,000 and 28,000 fatalities, roughly one-tenth of the Americans killed in World War II. Taking the lower number, this was 12.3 percent of the 210,000 Eighth Air Force crewmen who flew in combat. Of all branches of the American armed forces, only submarine crews in the Pacific had a higher fatality rate: almost 23 percent. In addition, an estimated 28,000 Eighth Air Force crewmembers were shot out of the sky and became prisoners of war. If they and the estimated 18,000 men who were wounded are added to the casualty list, the number of those lost in operations, not including untold numbers of psychological casualties, is at least 72,000, over 34 percent of those who experienced combat. This is the highest casualty rate in the American armed forces in World War II.”
  
  I have left out so many topics, “Big Week”, D-Day, “Black Week”, the advent of the jet, the new science of aerospace medicine, etc. You will find it all in this excellent history of the Mighty Eighth. Highest recommendation.
  
• 
  Marc

  After sitting on my shelf for a few years, I finally decided to read this. Having read many books on the 8th AF over the years, I was hoping this wouldn't be a rehashing of what I'd previously read. I'm happy to say it wasn't.
  
  The book concentrates solely on the bombers of the 8th AF, with very little attention paid to the fighters or the other American air forces in Europe, although they all do get a little bit of a mention here and there. Some units, such as the 100th BG, get a bit more ink than others, but that's to be expected--not every group can get the same amount of coverage. There is a great amount of personal recollections in the book, and not just from pilots but from aircrew and groundcrew as well.
  
  Designed to be a force of daylight, high-altitude precision bombers, the 8th went through some very painful growing pains. High losses and the unlikely odds of actually completing a combat tour of 25 missions lead to questions of morale, leadership and the very concept of daylight precision bombing. All of these topics are discussed in detail, and although hindsight is 20/20, I feel the author did a good job of presenting things fairly and showing the historical context of the situations. There are really good chapters on the POW experience and the issue of 8th AF bombers landing in neutral countries such as Sweden and Switzerland.
  
  A comparison of the British bombing campaign and leadership with that of the Americans is a common thread throughout the book. Both sides wished to defeat the Germans, but had very different ideas about how to do it. The British preferred to bomb by night and they put a fair amount of pressure upon the Americans to join them, but the Americans stuck to daylight bombing and in the end received vindication of their efforts.
  
  The book concludes with an examination of tactics and results, especially those found by the United States Strategic Bombing Survey conducted after the war and from interviews conducted with several high-ranking Germans such as Erhard Milch, Albert Speer, Herman Goering and Adolf Galland.
  
  A very enjoyable book which gives a good overall picture of the war fought by the bombers of the 8th AF, along with a fair amount of detail. Definitely worth adding to any aviation or World War II library.
• 
  Jonathan

  Excellent collection of first hand accounts of the men who served aboard bombers in WWII. No punches pulled. Visceral.
• 
  Kuszma

  A levegő urai a háborús szakmunkák azon csoportjába tartozik, amelyek a háború egy erősen behatárolt szeletét veszik górcső alá, de azt aztán végtelenül kimerítően. Miller kötete az amerikai 8. Légi Hadsereget vizsgálja, a szövetséges haderő legnagyobb légi csapásmérő egységét, amelynek feladatai közé a kontinens (elsősorban Németország, amint el tudtak jutni odáig) bombázása tartozott*. Ezen belül aztán szinte semmi sem kerüli el a figyelmét: a bombázószemélyzet lehetséges mentális és fizikai betegségei (mint amilyen a végtagok fagyása 6000 méteren, vagy a flakk okozta sérülések) éppúgy szóba kerülnek, mint a repülősök szórakozási lehetőségei a háborús Londonban. Az angolszász hagyományoknak megfelelően Miller szívesen szólíttatja meg a résztvevőket is, gyakran idéz a velük folytatott beszélgetésekből éppúgy, mint a fennmaradt naplókból, hogy minél erősebben átérezzük az egész atmoszférát. (Talán kicsit túl sokat is – néha mintha túlságosan elmerülne a véres részletekben…) Külön piros pont jár azért, hogy több eszméletlenül elborzasztó passzusban mutatja be azt a szenvedést is, amit a bombázott németek átéltek – hát, ha ezektől a soroktól nem megy el valakinek a kedve a háborúktól, akkor szerintem ideje elbeszélgetnie a pszichiáterével. De legalább a patikusával. És naná, hogy sok szót ejt a bombázás eszméjének születéséről.
  
  A légi csapások teoretikusai, mint például az olasz Giulio Douhet, vagy szellemi örököse, az amerikai William Mitchell tulajdonképpen Clausewitz elméletének megcsúfolását tűzték ki célul. A vén német ugyanis abból az alapvetésből indult ki, hogy az ellenség haderejét kell elpusztítani ahhoz, hogy egy háborút megnyerjünk – ők viszont abban hittek, hogy ha a háborút közvetlenül a hátországba teleportáljuk, akkor összességében kevesebb saját veszteséggel úszhatjuk meg az egészet. (Ők meg ebben Sherman tábornok módszerét másolták, aki az amerikai polgárháborúban átmasírozott a konföderált Délen, és felgyújtott mindent, amit ért. Aminek Margaret Mitchell örülhetett a legjobban, mert nagyon sikeres könyvet írt az eseményekből**.) Az, hogy egy olasz fasiszta nem rettent vissza a civilek kiirtásától, mondjuk érthető, de hogy egy amerikai demokrata is erre a következtetésre jutott, kissé morbid. Mentségükre szolgáljon, az amik annyit finomítottak a dolgon, hogy konkrétan az ellenség ipari kapacitását akarták kiiktatni. Az elmélet szerint egy fejtett ipari társadalom olyan érzékeny, összetett valami, hogy bizonyos elemeinek kiiktatása után összeomlik szépen, csendesen, úgyhogy bátor fiaink vérveszteség nélkül masírozhatnak be egy legyőzött országba. Nos, nem lett igazuk. A „bombabárók” nagy hangon vallották, hogy a nácikat pusztán a levegőből térdre tudják majd kényszeríteni, de ebben csúfos kudarcot vallottak – olyannyira, hogy a szövetségesek közül ők szedték össze közben a legnagyobb véres veszteséget. Ám sajátos módon, bár első számú céljukat nem tudták teljesíteni, de közvetve, szinte tudatlanul ők teremtették meg a partraszállás feltételeit: a Németország fölött vívott felőrlő háborúkban ugyanis úgy leamortizálták a Luftwaffét, hogy a D-napon (írd és mondd!) összesen két darab német vadászgép volt képes közvetlenül támadni az inváziós haderőt.
  
  Amitől számomra a bombázóháború a II. világháború egyik legizgalmasabb eseménysorozata, az az, hogy itt jelenik meg legbrutálisabban, mennyire kilátástalan egy ilyen esetben megőrizni valamiféle morális tisztességet. Minden háborúban létrejön az erkölccsel szemben egy abszolútum, amit úgy hívnak, katonai szükségszerűség. Arra az elvre épül, hogy saját állampolgáraink felé nagyobb felelősséggel tartozunk, mint egy ellenséges ország állampolgárai felé – ilyen értelemben ha egy pályaudvar legyalulása vélhetően megment X db amerikai katonát, akkor azt a pályaudvart le kell gyalulni, még ha várhatóan meg is hal emiatt Y db civil. A katonai szükségszerűség a háború velejárója***, nincs olyan fegyveres konfliktus, amiben mellőzhető. Ahogy Orwell meglehetősen karcosan megfogalmazta: „Van valami egészen undorító abban, ha valaki elfogadja a háborút mint eszközt, ugyanakkor el akarja sunnyogni az annak nyilvánvalóan barbár vonásaival járó felelősséget”. Ami számomra nem azt jelenti, hogy a terrorbombázás elfogadható, hanem hogy maga a háború kell elfogadhatatlan legyen. Felejtsük el ezt a lovagias küzdelem dolgot, ahol vitéz huszárjaink szinte békebeli focimeccseket idéző sportszerűséggel kaszabolják az ellenséget. A modern háború egész egyszerűen nem ilyen (megjegyzem: már a focimeccsek sem ilyenek), úgyhogy aki elvállalja a hadüzenet felelősségét (mert van, hogy el kell vállalnia, attól félek), annak el kell vállalnia a bűnt is, amit ezzel magára vesz. Persze megkísérelheti (meg kell kísérelje) mérsékelni az óhatatlan károkat, amihez józan belátásra és empátiára van szükség. Ami azonban nem a tábornokok legfőbb tulajdonsága, amint azt a huszadik század fényesen bizonyította. És igen, azt hiszem, a második világháború röviden összefoglalható így is: a nácik próbára tették a nyugati szövetségeseket, hogy képesek-e tartani magukat az általuk hangoztatott magasztos erkölcsi elvekhez. Nos, nem voltak képesek. Szívás.
  
  * Itt idejekorán leszögezném, hogy Hamburgot, Drezdát, Kölnt vagy Berlint nem ők bombázták szecskává – azok a britek, a RAF éjszakai bombázói voltak. Az amerikaiak a háború utolsó pár hetéig megtartóztatták magukat a terrorbombázástól, és a nappali „precíziós” bombavetésben hittek, amivel az ellenség gazdaságát igyekeztek elpusztítani. Ez, figyelembe véve a találati pontosságukat, a gyakorlatban azt jelentette, hogy amíg a britek direkt bombáztak civileket, addig az amerikaiak véletlenül. Ettől függetlenül ez egy lényeges különbség.
  ** Ez egy Vonnegut-mondás szemérmetlen ellopása és parafrazeálása. Kurt Drezda felégetéséről jegyezte meg szellemesen, hogy egyetlen embernek hajtott hasznot: neki, mert írt belőle egy könyvet, amiből szépen keresett.
  *** Persze a „szükségszerűség” fogalma békeidőben is felmerülhet, ám ilyenkor nem vérre megy, így kisebb hatásfokkal lehet alkalmazni. Ennek áthidalására találták ki azt fineszes*** politikusaink, hogy nem-háborús eseményeket háborúként próbálnak meg rátukmálni a jónépre (sikerrel), mert akkor már a jóval combosabb katonai szükségszerűségre hivatkozhatnak.
• 
  Hermien

  The losses of men and aircraft and the destruction of cities is incredible. Hindsight is of course a wonderful thing but some of the tactical decisions made are troubling.
• 
  John Nellis

  This book is one of the best I've read; on the American bombing campaign in Europe. This book contains almost anything you would want to know about the campaign. It has first person accounts; profiles on the planes; men; and equipment. It has sections on the beginnings of air medicine; and the psychological aspects of what the crews went through. From the supply services to the building of airfields. It's all here. The book is easy to read and keeps you interested throughout. I could go on; and on; but that would make my review to long. If you are interested in the air war over Europe; particularly from the American side this book is one of the best on the subject.
• 
  Rick

  This was a masterful history of the Eighth Air Force, the lead element of the United States in the air war during World War II. While so much has been written about the ground war - not the least of which is Winston Churchill's six-volume "The Second World War," and the naval battles - such as Ian W. Toll's three volumes on the Pacific events (Pacific Crucible, The Conquering Tide, and Twilight of the Gods), it seems the air wars did not have as comprehensive coverage. Miller's book addresses that problem.
  
  This tale is a hefty narrative weighing in at about 500 pages, but it covers a lot of ground from the establishment of the Eighth Air Force to the surrender of Germany in 1945. Miller does have the habit of wandering in his story a bit, but even that is engrossing. When the reader is done with this book they will have a grasp of what really went on in the skies over Europe, and a feel for the differences in the RAF and the U.S. approaches.
  
  Miller's tale is very approachable, flows wonderfully, and can be put down and picked back up without having to read yourself back into the narrative. Highly recommended for those with little knowledge of the air wars over Europe.
• 
  Mac

  Buy.
  
  Well done history of the Eighth Air Force and the key figures involved. A reminder of the devastation wrought by all sides of this gravest of conflicts.
  
  Looking forward to the upcoming miniseries based on the Bloody Hundredth.
• 
  Michael Burnam-Fink

  Masters of the Air is an well-deserved classic of military history, focusing on the Eighth Air Force, the United States strategic bomber arm that was the first American unit to bring the war to Nazi Germany, and which pioneered the tactics and techniques of strategic bombing.
  
  By all reason, the strategic air campaign should not have worked. Army Air Corps doctrine in the late 30s was built around three major pillars: the heavily armed B-17 Flying Fortress was 'self-escorting' and could fend off hostile fighters; the gyroscopic Norden bombsite could hit pinpoint targets with accuracy; and precision attacks on 'vital centers' of industry could cripple an enemy military without the need for battles of attrition. All three of these assumptions would be proven wrong in the skies over German, with deadly consequences for the men who had been trained and equipped on them.
  
  The cloudless skies of test ranges over the American southwest were nothing like the weather over England and Germany. Men froze in the stratospheric slipstream, and bombers were lost in rapidly changing weather conditions. Flak and fighters ripped through the B-17 and B-24s, inflicting proportional casualties as high as any duty in the war, matched only by submarine crews. Nazi industry proved surprisingly resilient. Yet even if every specific of pre-war doctrine was wrong, the bombers succeeded in their most important tasks. Defense against bombers escorted by P-51s in the months leading up to Overlord deciminated the Luftwaffe, and the landings were unopposed from the air. The transport and oil campaigns feel short of paralyzing the Nazi war machine, but delay and friction impeded the panzers, and gave the Normandy beachhead time to stabilize and expand. And the thousands of heavy guns shooting at the sky, and not T-34s on the steppes, had some helpful effect on the Eastern Front.
  
  Miller was inspired to write this book in part by his friendship with Lt. Col. Robert "Rosie" Rosenthal of the "Bloody 100th" Bombardment Wing, and this book shines in depicting the human side of the Eighth. It was a whole new kind of warfare. Crews would take off in English fog, endure hours of torment over Europe, return, and potentially be in London with a pretty girl by evening. War at the limits of technology was intensely dangerous. The first teams, dispatched in 1943, had a one in five chance of completing the required 25 missions. Frostbite, flak, and fighters were the three terrors of this aerial front. Showcase raids, like Schweinfurt–Regensburg and Ploesti, caused terrible losses for temporary results. The courage that it took to fly straight and level, holding formation through the worst, was like something out of Napoleonic warfare, standing in ranks to take fire. Bomber crews were teams as tightly knit as any on Earth. Along with the flying, there are stories about leaves around England, the traditions of the bases, and the devotion of the men to each other.
  
  But the mission was murder. Thousands of the bomber boys died in combat, and many more were grievously wounded, or held captive in Nazi POW camps (this book does not neglect the POW perspective). And point military targets soon shifted to area targets like railyards and factories in German cities, and in the last months of the war 'morale bombings' to break the will of the German people, a campaign of terror through mass civilian death. Miller tries to draw a distinction between the goals of the Eight Air Force and the RAF's city-busting campaigns under "Bomber" Harris, but I'm not sure the Brits deserve that characterization. Area bombing against civilians is a war crime, and we can recognize that without the slide into the fallacy that there's no difference between the air campaign and the Holocaust.
  
  In the end, strategic bombing failed in its goal of shorter, cleaner wars. Attrition moved from the trenches to the skies. But the men who flew those missions were a rare breed. There are damn few of them left. Both my grandfathers served in WW2, one in the Pacific, and one was never deployed. I'm a member of the Commemorative Air Force, which keeps a B-17, Sentimental Journey, flying. This book has deepened my appreciation of airpower, the mission, and especially the men.
  
• 
  Gerry

  I would strongly recommend reading this book only after one has read "A Few Good Captains" by Dewitt S. Copp. It certainly dove tails the development of the USAAF into the USAF and shows the many struggles of pilots of all sorts of Aircraft during WW II and their attempt at surviving especially the early days of the war in the ETO. I wished it would have done more to cover the air war in the PTO but this is the American Psyche - war in Europe was known because of the general knowledge of Americans and geographical locations on the globe. "Battle of Britain" or the "Battle of New Britain"? Which would you be most likely to recall from history? Herein lay the fundamental issues. Still this book is fascinating.
• 
  J. Bryce

  Easily one of the best things I've read on the "Mighty Eighth Air Force" in WWII -- but like The Monuments Men, I don't see how they (Spielberg, Hanks, and HBO) are going to make a miniseries out of it. Despite the inherent drama, there ain't much traditional plot -- but maybe that's why I'm not a screenwriter!
  
  This will fascinate those interested in WWII history. There are anecdotes and personal histories galore, statistical analysis, strategic discussions and lots of parts where things get blown up.
  
  
• 
  Marcus

  I must admit that I'm having a bit of difficulty in finding the 'right label' for this book, mainly because its author tries in my opinion to cover in it at least three topics, all sharing the common denominator, but nonetheless quite separate from each other. The common denominator is of course the story of 8th Airforce and its bombing campaign against German Reich between 1942 and 1945. Lion share of this book is dedicated to a narrative of 'the human story' of this grand air formation and men who served in it. Author does an excellent job with a narrative that allows the reader to get detailed insight into the personal experience of serving with 8th Airforce. How did one deal with the enormous stresses and paradoxes of flying a mission over Berlin during the day and going to bed in a soft bed in the evening? How did U.S. servicemen interact with their British hosts? What did the experience of being a German POW feel like? These questions and a whole lot more are answered with help of author's skillful narrative and frequent usage of personal recollections of men who 'were there'.
  
  The scope of 'Masters of the air' is however bigger that than just the 'human experience' of 8th Airforce's military personel. Intermingled with the personal stories of U.S. servicemen, British civilians and sometimes also pilots and civilians on the German side are two other equally important and fascinating stories. The first tells the story of conceptual and practical development of heavy bomber as strategic weapon during World War 2. Starting point for 8th Airforce was founded on a lot of seriously flawed pre-war preconceptions and theories. Over the course of the war, based on practical experience bought at terrifying cost, it transformed itself into a horrifyingly effective and destructive military machine. The author slowly walks the reader through this metamorphosis with help of recurring 'tangents' spread throughout the book.
  
  Another set of 'tangents' is dedicated to a discussion regarding the effectivness and consequences of U.S. bombing campaign of Germany from military, economical and moral perspective. In those sections of the book, the analysis goes in depth into such issues as most effective allocation of resources, identification and exploitation of strategic 'softspots' and other, in my opinion quite complex, topics related to military strategy. Perhaps the most difficult and troublesome aspect of U.S. bombing campaign against Germany - its morality or rather lack thereof - is also discussed at length.
  
  Author's input regarding these rather heavy topics is by no means superficial. On the contrary, his analysis is at times among the most detailed and well-argumented I've encountered during my couple of decades of study of history of Second World War. What's more, the author takes a rather controversial stand regarding certain issues which are hotly disputed among historians and analysts even today, which in my opinion makes his contribution even more fascinating and interesting.
  
  My major problem with this book is that I'm not entirely convinced that intermixing the 'human story' aspect of this book and the two much more 'technical' and specialized topics was a very good idea. I admit that the author not only makes this rather odd mix work, but actually manages to make the three main topics of this book complement each other. But I also believe that this choice makes 'Masters of the air' quite demanding on reader's prior knowledge of the subject of this book. For a military history buff like me this book is a treat. For a casual reader it may be a bit hard to absorb and appreciate.
• 
  David Cook

  My close friend, Paul Rowe, told me that his father was a B29 Bomber Pilot in the European Theater. So I decided to find a book on the subject since neither of our fathers and talked much about their ward experiences. Once you read of what they went through you know why. The author cites a famous remark by the French statesman Georges Clemenceau: “War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory.” That, in a nutshell, is the story of the Eighth Air Force, the bomber command created in the month after Pearl Harbor and assigned the task of bringing Germany’s war machine to its knees.
  
  The gap between theory and practice turned out to be hell for American airmen. The “bomber boys” of the Eighth Air Force, stationed at 40 bases found out the hard way that many of these assumptions of war planners were nothing but theories and would fall apart in the skies over Europe. In the bleak days of 1942 it became evident that precision bombing was a delusion, that well-protected targets like submarine bases were nearly impossible to destroy, and that bombers loaded with bombs, could be a fat target for German fighters and antiaircraft guns. Only submarine crews in the Pacific had a higher fatality rate.
  
  Most airmen died in combat, especially during the desperate campaign of attrition leading up to D-Day, when bombers were sent out as bait for German fighters, which would then be picked off by American fighter pilots flying the new Mustang P51. Many who did not die on bombing runs bailed out and ended up in prison camps. Mental breakdowns were routine and, by the winter of 1943, the most common reason for removing an airman from duty.
  
  For more than a year, the Eighth Air Force was a conspicuous failure. Its bombing raids on ball-bearing plants and submarine bases produced little or no effect, but Gen. Henry (Hap) Arnold, the commander of the Army Air Forces, was desperate to prove that strategic bombing could work and determined to see the Army Air Forces emerge from the war as an independent branch of the armed services. Again and again, too few planes with inadequate escort were sent out on daylight runs against ill-chosen targets, like World War I infantrymen being sent over the top.
  
  Gradually, American industry, operating full tilt, began supplying airplanes in the numbers needed. At peak 8th Air Force comprised 200,000 airmen and ground support troops, 2,800 bombers and more than 1,400 fighter planes.
  
  Its fighter pilots, who included Chuck Yeager, and Rolland Wright decimated the Luftwaffe, clearing the way for D-Day. Late in the war the “bomber boys” took part in the apocalyptic raids that destroyed Berlin and Dresden. The book unflinchingly describes the devastation wrought by the civilian bombing campaign and tackles the moral issues head-on.
  
  
• 
  Larry Bassett

  Part of the title of this book “bomber boys“ seems a little strange to me. It is in a way flippant and dismissive of the men who flew the bombers in Europe in World War II. On the other hand the eight or 10 men on each crew were in many cases very young. And they apparently had a camaraderie that men in the army on the ground did not have as commonly.
  
  This is a long book. 25 hours in the audible format. It covers the story of the bombers in Europe from the beginning of the war until the end. It is hard to imagine that we will have her have and air war like we had in World War II again. Are that we will ever have a land war like that again. Almost all the planes in World War II were propeller driven planes with jets only making a relatively small entrance in the German Air Force at the end of the war.
  
  The book takes on all the controversial World War II bombing issues in a relatively straightforward way both looking at what people thought at the time, how the views changed with experience and a more retrospective review after the war. While clearly leaning in the direction of favoring the United States point of view, the author seemed willing to make some difficult judgment calls based on his own research and knowledge. He is willing to acknowledge propaganda when he sees it and to realize that vital information was sometimes publicly misrepresented at the time. Civilian bomb casualties is a major issue and it is dealt with with apparent reasonable thoroughness and integrity. This is not clearly a pro or anti-war book. There is much recognition that war is a messy and complicated situation with not much being obvious other than it would be better to avoid them if possible. Hitler and the Nazi‘s are not given many excuses in this book for their actions.
  
  It was fascinating for me to read about some of the events involving the neutral countries of Switzerland and Sweden. Switzerland particularly remained a major trading partner with the Nazi regime and held a considerable number of American pilots who were forced down in Switzerland in very poor conditions.
  
  My evaluation of the book is that it made a serious effort to analyze the experience of those involved with the bombing aspect of the war. It was an extraordinarily major part of that event and there were definitely different ideas about how to carry it out and those ideas changed with the experience of the war. The men in the airplanes we’re fire more frequently killed rather than wounded. When the plane was destroyed or went down it most often impacted everyone on the plane. Flying conditions were relatively primitive by today’s standards Even when everything went very well. End it often did not go very well. This book is fairly explicit in its descriptions of the lives of the bomber boys.
• 
  Zach Koenig

  Books about World War II are often difficult projects to tackle. The scope of what happened during that conflict is so staggeringly enormous that rendering it imaginable to the amateur historian is nearly impossible. Donald L. Miller's "Master of the Air" is no different. This is a tough read from a technical perspective. Either you take months to pore over all the names, places, dates, and numbers present, or you skim a bit and find the narratives. There really is no middle ground.
  
  I chose the latter strategy, often finding my eyes glazing over a bit as my brain searched for the connective-tissue humanity as opposed to the logistics of the story. Taking such an approach, the entertainment value of the overall read waxed and waned frequently. Some sections held me riveted, while others I glossed over a bit more.
  
  In terms of education, however, Miller's tome is top-notch. I came into the book with very little knowledge of how the Air Force shaped WWII, but I left with a much better understanding of and appreciation for the pilots and their machines/tactics. While certainly a more glamorous (at least from the outside looking in) position than, say, an Army land-dweller, the attrition rate in terms of lost pilots was almost astonishingly, obscenely high. That is also to say nothing of the psychological toll flying in wartime conditions took on countless others. It was truly fascinating (and sometimes heartbreaking) to read about such stories.
  
  So, in terms of pure information, "Masters of the Air" is a no-question 5/5 stars. But for overall reader enjoyment (unless WWII history is one's preferred material)? Probably more like a 3.5/5.
  
  A final interesting tidbit: This story is being adapted (currently filming!) into a miniseries by no less luminaries than Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. I have absolutely no doubt that they will be able to turn the story of WWII's air war into television every bit as compelling as Band of Brothers. It's all here, just waiting to be streamlined for all audiences to enjoy.
• 
  Clyde

  This long book is the definitive single-volume history of the American air war in Europe. The air war was brutal. An American bomber crewman in 1943 had only a one in five chance of surviving to the end of his tour of duty. The bomber command suffered more casualties in WW2 than the Marine Corps.
  The book is centered on the 8th Air Force, but ranges far and wide covering the USA's daylight bombing campaign, the British night bombing campaign, fighter development and deployment, internal politics both civilian and military, the "bomber barons", the experience of civilians on the receiving end, German defensive tactics, the experience of prisoners of war, the development of air medicine, and much much more.
  All in all, this is an impressive book. It is well written and well researched, it does not shy away from the ugly side of the war, it brings out a wealth of new information, and it illuminates some relatively unknown aspects of the war. Recommended.
• 
  Bill

  This is the definitive history of the 8th Air Force, the army's England-based force of fighters and bombers that took the war to the enemy from 1943 through the end of the war. Miller is a good writer and he manages to weave multiple threads, blending personal stories with critical analysis of the strategy employed. The book takes a hard look at the moral questions surrounding what amounts to terror bombing of civilians and lets the facts speak for themselves. The 8th air force took an incredible number of casualties and those who survived experienced trauma beyond human comprehension. I try to reserve 5 stars for only the most outstanding histories; those that combine skillful writing with rigorous scholarship. This is the definitive history for the air war waged by this legendary unit.
  
• 
  Robert Pinksten

  The most in depth and descriptive book on the Air War in Europe I've ever encountered. It is mind boggling the amount of research that must have been done in writing this book. Loved it
• 
  Jason

  Absolutely Fascinating! Miller dives into the experiences of some of the most courageous warriors ever.
• 
  Joe

  This book is being adapted into a mini-series for Apple + so I thought I would give it a read. There is a lot of information here. This book requires some commitment to finish. It is well done but may be a bit over ambitious in the scope. It gets a bit difficult to keep track of when and where we are in time and space. It is well done but is an overload of information.
• 
  Lynn Leatherman

  In terms of information about the 8th Air Force superb, but I found the general flow of the book confusing at times.
• 
  John

  I was expecting a "how the Americans won WW2" book and to some extent this book was.
  
  However, it also had interesting parts in this book. The Swiss "Neutrality"... I never realised they had prison camps for allied airmen and shot those who tried to escape. Apparently the Swiss also persecuted jews. Interestingly there is some information that V2 rockets were actually used operationally. I had always assumed they were just a research project.
  
  There's some stuff in here that really annoyed me. Chuck Yeager is apparently the best test pilot of all-time!? No mention of Captain Eric "Winkle" Brown who is also recognised as one of the best test pilots ever. But Chuck is American so must be the only one that can be acknowledged.
  
  The P-51D was the best fighter of WW2. Well, it was widely known the Spitfire (Mk IX, Mk XIV and Mk XVI) was the better dogfighter. The P-51D had the better range (because it had way larger fuel tanks!). Saying that tho' the Spitfire was designed as an interceptor and not a long-range escort. Two very different roles.
  
  The RAF bombers only hit large population centres and not any tactical or operational targets. It was the US Army Airforce that hit targets of importance that disrupted the Nazi war effort. Hmmm... suppose Ruhr dams, Operation Hydra (not a mention even tho' V2s were mentioned), oil refinery raids such as the one on the oil refinery at Vallø (Tønsberg) don't count.
  
  The use of the word "Nazi" for any German. Not every German was a member of the Nazi party. It's like referring to all Americans as Republicans.
  
  Books like this can taint and distort history.
• 
  Ek Guevara

  สารคดีเล่มหนา ว่าด้วยกองกำลังทางอากาศของสหรัฐอเมริกาบนแผ่นดินอังกฤษตั้งแต่เริ่มก่อตั้งจนถึงสงครามโลกครั้งที่สองยุติ รายละเอียดมีมากแต่ก็ไม่ทำให้สับสน มีหลายประเด็นที่ไม่เคยอ่านเจอจากที่อื่นมาก่อน