Men Of Air
The Doomed Youth Of Bomber Command
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5.0 • 3 Ratings
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- £3.99
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
The story of the everyday heroism of British bomber crews in 1944 - the turning point year in Bomber Command's war against Germany.
There were many ways for a combat crew to die during Bomber Command's war of 1944. Over German territory, bursts of heavy flak could tear the wings from their planes in a split second. Flaming bullets from German fighter planes could explode their fuel tanks, cut their oxygen supplies, destroy their engines. In the spring of that year, thousands of young men were shot, blown up, or thrown from their planes five miles above the earth; and even those who returned faced the subtler dangers of ice and fog as they tried to land their battered aircraft back home.
The winter of 1944 was the most dangerous time to be a combat airman in RAF Bomber Command. The chances of surviving a tour were as low as one in five, and morale had finally hit rock bottom. In this comprehensive history of the air war that year, Kevin Wilson describes the most dangerous period of the Battle of Berlin, and the unparalleled losses over Magdeburg, Leipzig and Nuremberg.
He tells how ordinary men coped with constant pressure of flying, the loss of their colleagues, and the threat of death or capture. And, by telling the story of the famous events of this period - the Great Escape, D-Day, the defeat of the V1 menace - he shows how, through sheer grit and determination, the 'Men of Air' finally turned the tide against the Germans.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This scrupulously researched account of the final stages of the Royal Air Force Bomber Command's campaign against Nazi Germany draws heavily on accounts from the men who were part of the waning days of the air war, offering a grim portrait of the raids in the nighttime skies over occupied Europe. Wilson's fierce, insistent focus on the ordinary heroism of the RAF crews and pilots flying unwieldy, spartan aircraft in a "pitiless war" and rightly expecting to "vanish this night or the next" is both gripping and crushingly repetitive. He recounts, for example, crewmembers who survived a raid over Mailly-le-Camp only because they ignored their orders, which were to orbit around a yellow marker on the ground; to do so in that night's bright moonlight was, as a pilot called it, "virtual suicide." So many of the accounts he cites are followed with a note that the flyer was killed shortly thereafter that the book begins to read like an annotated casualty list, with little energy devoted to the tactical decisions underlying the night bombing campaign over Germany. The first-person accounts from pilots, aircrew, and even German foes are rich in detail, but they are often similar details on different raids. Readers seeking command-level strategic analysis won't find it here, but Wilson offers an intimate, frightening look at the aircrew experience. Photos.
Customer Reviews
A great read
Superbly written and thoroughly researched, this is a book worth owning as a source of reference alone. But the eye witness accounts from the few men fortunate enough to survive, bring this wonderful book to life. They should never be forgotten.