Bombing Nazi Germany: The Graphic History of the Allied Air Campaign That Defeated Hitler in World War II

by Wayne Vansant

In Bombing Nazi Germany, renowned graphic novel author and artist Wayne Vansant profiles the dramatic joint American-British Allied air war against Nazi Germany throughout Europe during World War II. Meticulously researched, illustrated, and written with the same unmatched quality of Vansant’s Normandy and Gettysburg (also from Zenith Press), Bombing Nazi Germany tells the story of the first and second generations of airmen, soldiers, and politicians from both sides who sought to bomb the enemy into submission. Vansant traces the development of the wildly controversial Strategic Bombing doctrine in the 1920s and 1930s, the early stages of WWII and the dominance of the German Luftwaffe, and the eventual 1942 involvement of the United States’ 8th Air Force and its vast fleet of B-17 and B-24 bombers. Beautifully detailed with maps, schematics, and charts, Bombing Nazi Germany also explores how industry and science aided the Allied air forces in these violent fights, as both the Americans and British made crucial advancements in air detection and evasion methods. Finally, Vansant illustrates the lesser-known perspective of the brave German pilots five miles above the earth who fought not to protect Hitler’s Reich, but their homes and families. As entertaining as it is educational, Bombing Nazi Germany continues Wayne Vansant’s tradition of brilliant nonfiction graphic history.

Genres: History, Graphic Novels, War, World War II, Graphic Novels Comics, Military Fiction, Nonfiction

104 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

I was born and raised near Atlanta, GA, and served in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War. I graduated from the Atlanta College of Art in 1975 and have had many jobs, including being a salesman, security guard, milk delivery man, and the Director of Security for a large art museum.

I began my writing and illustration career in 1986 with Marvel Comics' "Savage Tales" and "The 'Nam." Since then I have written and/or illustrated many books and comics on historical/military subjects such as Battle Group Peiper, Days of Darkness, Antietam: The Fiery Trial (commissioned by the National Park Service), Blockade: The Civil War at Sea, The War in Korea, The Hammer and the Anvil (profiling Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass), Normandy (profiling D-Day and the entire Normandy Campaign), Gettysburg (profiling the Battle of Gettysburg), and many others.

I am currently working on graphic histories of the Battle of the Bulge, Manfred von Richthofen, aka the Red Baron, and and am finishing up my Russian Front trilogy entitled Katusha: Girl Soldier of the Patriotic War, which is currently available as an eBook on Comics Plus, a leading comics book app.

Reviews

[Glen Farrelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think it is doing a disservice to history how this book groups Canada and other commonwealth countries all in together as part of "Britain".

[Adam Prokopanko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book but too US-centric for what the back cover bills as the "story of the joint American-British air war". It would be nice to have names and vignettes of more British and Commonwealth pilots and stories to balance all the US ones.

[Jordan Balsamo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great history well done without the mythology surrounding WWII. Could be used as a college level overview.

[Nilendu Misra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was so painful to read and view the raid on Dresden - a university town - that killed 135,000 people.

[Jurij Fedorov · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's amazing how much better this is than his D-Day book. In every way. The art is better and more detailed, the drawings related to the story, plenty of details, outlines and maps. It's like he fixed everything wrong in his most popular book.

It's not as engaging as you'd wish. You do need interest in this topic as he's naming plane after plane. I can't recall the names of when what plane was taken in use. But I recall what technology arrived when and what role it played. The book is an autistic look at plane models basically. And we see a few air battles yet he skips details about bombing campaigns. Details that would explain how it worked and how ineffective some bombing campaigns were.

This is a book from an American point of view where their day raid campaign is center focus as the main event during WW2. I'm not so sure I would agree. I think rather it's known today for being quite a disaster all around with way too many planes and pilots lost. Of course USA had the population to sustain the loses so they didn't care too much compared to Germany that couldn't afford to lose pilots at all. Britain also didn't see the point in this huge a pilot and plane loss. The author proclaims all US bombing raids big successes while even a successful mission like the Dambusters he proclaims as a failure as they only took out 2 out of the 3 dams. Not explaining that this actually flooded a huge field area causing Germans to worry. And causes Germans to move air defense systems - saving planes in other areas. Albert Speer himself said a follow-up 3 months later, when the dams were repaired, would have been enormously destructive.

Yet the American bombing of the ball bearing plant is seen as a huge success as this plant produced a big part of German bearings. Except they had enough produced already and not producing more for a while didn't cause a big enough difference to warrant a day raid with this many plane loses. But Americans will claim it's all a success and propaganda wise it was so maybe the author is not willing to budge on the propaganda. Pilots could claim certain targets while night raids often didn't see what they hit. Just like the Tokyo bombing this was often just done for PR with no significant effect and most bombers missing the target even flying low during the day. So low you nearly hit trees. I would have hoped the author would dig deeper into the effects instead of just praising all Americans. I don't think readers will be offended, just perplexed. What campaign did what damage? Who knows?

[Damián Hernández Hernández · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buena historia sobre la guerra aérea de la Segunda Guerra Mundial en la que se detalla con exactitud la dureza y crudeza de este conflicto en el aire, donde podrías obtener tu propio "ataúd volante". Las ilustraciones son muy detallistas y perfectas, recomendable lectura.

[Mark Singer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read a lot about the WWll strategic campaign in Europe. This book would be good place to start before reading more detailed histories. Although the book seems to be well-researched, I had to give it three instead of four stars as there was no bibliography.

[Ethan Choi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing illustrations and deliverance of story

It is a 5 star for all the things in the book and the illustrations are just amazing like crap!!!

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book about the air war over Germany.

[Mickey Bits · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting and informative. Excellent for reluctant readers, enjoyable by all.

Once again, I was amazed by the number of typos in this book... need to get a new proofreader!

[Billy Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

good book

[Jay French · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I thought I'd loan this 100-page graphic arts history book to my father-in-law, who is in his late 80s and reads a lot of mysteries. He returned it raving about how much he learned and how interesting it was to read. Mr. Vansant, I believe I got you another reader. While I personally didn't live through WWII, I have read a few histories and Jeff Shaara books (they count, don't they?), and I learned some too. Nice length, not too short or long. And nice mix of detail and overview - lots of operation level info and lots of individual stories, more of these than I had heard before. Also a good mix of info on technology and the people involved. The graphics sometimes helped tell the story, but not always -- there are a lot of images of older soldiers with frowns, and younger pilots smiling, and planes belching fire from cannons. But it met what I was looking for. I look forward to reading others in this series.

I won this book on Goodreads First Reads program.

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must start out with honesty. While I read this book as an educator, for the purpose of homeschool students to use as a history text, I did not really enjoy the book. It was a narrative with lots of pictures, an easy read, and fairly interesting. Despite of this, I found it not quite what I expected for a comic book, and not in depth enough for a history book.

But that does not effect it's level of educational value. If I was to grade on that, I would say it's a 5 star book for students with a little bit of WWII history under their belt. There are notes of politics, technological advances, important battles, and even a handful of important people. And, it's written in a way that is easy to follow without being overwhelming for those that don't have a mind for names and dates.

I took the time to check the info against a military historian, Travis Beiersdorfer, and it seems to be very accurate for being so easy to read.

[Erik · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of Wayne Vansant's work. Here Vansant lays out the history of the Eighth Air Force and Bomber Command in their long struggle against the German Luftwaffe. He hits all the major players here - Harris, Dootlittle, Goering - as well as lots of little-known pilots who were heroes for both sides. Overall this is a good objective and entertaining look at one of the most important campaigns of World War II. Highly recommended!

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another great graphic history from Wayne Vansant.
For a student of the Second World War in Europe, this book, combined with Vansant's Normandy: A Graphic History of D-Day; The Allied Invasion of Fortress Europe and his upcoming Battle of the Bulge: A Graphic History of Allied Victory in the Ardennes, 1944-1945, will serve as a nice base level.
Highly recommended.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

For goodness sake, it's "sepArate," not "sepErate." The quote is "sowed the wind" not "sewed the wind." And Cologne lost meTal works, not meDal works. I'm only on page 19. how are you supposed to teach kids history when you can't master spelling??? There are better options out there and, even if there aren't, you're better off skipping this nonsense.

[Neven · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent educational comic. Nothing more nor less.

[Jonathan Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned a ton, and this coming from a WWII airplane nerd. Great book!!

[Juan SebaCre · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the story was great. The only problem was that it did not have much of a story, it was just telling the reader about the attacks.