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

by Donald L. Miller

The inspiration for the major Apple TV+ series, streaming now!
The riveting history of the American Eighth Air Force in World War II and the young men who flew the bombers that helped beat the Nazis and liberate Europe, brilliantly told by historian and World War II expert Donald L. Miller. The Masters of the Air streaming series stars Austin Butler and Callum Turner, and is produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, the legendary duo behind Band of Brothers and The Pacific.

Masters of the Air is the deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitler’s doorstep. With the narrative power of fiction, Donald Miller takes you on a harrowing ride through the fire-filled skies over Berlin, Hanover, and Dresden and describes the terrible cost of bombing for the German people. Masters of the Air is the deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitler’s doorstep. With the narrative power of fiction, Donald Miller takes you on a harrowing ride through the fire-filled skies over Berlin, Hanover, and Dresden and describes the terrible cost of bombing for the German people.

Fighting at 25,000 feet in thin, freezing air that no warriors had ever encountered before, bomber crews battled new kinds of assaults on body and mind. Air combat was deadly but intermittent: periods of inactivity and anxiety were followed by short bursts of fire and fear. Unlike infantrymen, bomber boys slept on clean sheets, drank beer in local pubs, and danced to the swing music of Glenn Miller’s Air Force band, which toured US air bases in England. But they had a much greater chance of dying than ground soldiers.

The bomber crews were an elite group of warriors who were a microcosm of America—white America, anyway. The actor Jimmy Stewart was a bomber boy, and so was the “King of Hollywood,” Clark Gable. And the air war was filmed by Oscar-winning director William Wyler and covered by reporters like Andy Rooney and Walter Cronkite, all of whom flew combat missions with the men. The Anglo-American bombing campaign against Nazi Germany was the longest military campaign of World War II, a war within a war. Until Allied soldiers crossed into Germany in the final months of the war, it was the only battle fought inside the German homeland.

Masters of the Air is “a stunning achievement” (David McCullough), “a fresh new account” (Walter Boyne, former director of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum) of life in wartime England and in the German prison camps, where tens of thousands of airmen spent part of the war. It ends with a vivid description of the grisly hunger marches captured airmen were forced to make near the end of the war through the country their bombs destroyed.

Drawn from recent interviews, oral histories, and American, British, German, and other archives, Masters of the Air is an authoritative, deeply moving account that “accurately and comprehensively” (Lt. Gen. Bernard E. Trainor, USMC (Ret.) and coauthor of Cobra II) tells of the world’s first and only bomber war

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II, War, Military Fiction, Military History, Aviation

688 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Dr. Miller is the John Henry MacCracken Professor of History at Lafayette College and an expert on World War II, among other topics in American history. Three of his eight books are on WWII: D-Days in the Pacific (2005), the story of the American re-conquest of the Pacific from Imperial Japan; Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany (2006); and The Story of World War II (2001), all published by Simon & Schuster.

Reviews

[Boudewijn · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Melindam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audio ARC received from the Publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

"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 fact: you are going to be baby-killers and women-killers."

"There were two sets of victims in the European bomber war: those who were bombed and the men who bombed them."

Well, this was simply staggering: intense, haunting, informative, tense. For a non-fiction book it put me through the full-scale of emotions. I was touched, horrified, elated, overwhelmed, exhausted, depressed and thrilled.

Author Donald L. Miller presented such a comprehensive story of World War 2 through the lens of aerial, mostly US bomber, warfare in Europe that was both panoramic and close-cutting and utterly compelling that my ears were glued to my headphones as I went on listening.

The compassion that Miller showed towards both the bombed and the bombers while being able to present the facts in a clear, non-biased way made this book something special for me. This was difficult and harrowing, but an unforgettable read (listen) for me.

Before I started reading, I have to admit to a bit of wariness about the book, because of the title "Masters of the Air" that hinted at the possibility of glory and heroes, but my mind was soon put to rest.

At no stage of the book did Miller try and glorify war or the those fighting there. His tale is an honest description of all the sufferings, want, serious mental issues and physical injuries the bombers went through and afflicted on the bombed.

[A.L. Sowards · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany’ by Donald L. Miller is a masterpiece! Well, it is if the reader is a nerdy fan of World War II warfare. I am a nerd, I strongly suspect. But I am not a fan, usually, of books which go into excruciating detail about troop placements requiring me to get maps and maybe little toy soldiers, ships and tanks to push around in order to understand how a battle was fought. Not that I actually have ever used toys, but I have had to get out maps if they weren’t included in the book. I had to quiet my inner demons of utter boredom, for example, when I read those parts of exacting troop movements and battles in War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, or Caesar: Life of a Colossus by Adrian Goldsworthy. Of course, I admit I was richly rewarded with insight into the confusion of warfare, how much geography and weather matters, and the why of the effects of battles on characters invented by authors who very likely are using factual real-life stories, or real-life documents which tell the actual participants’ stories in diaries or written personal histories in non-fiction books. While Tolstoy’s book is fiction based on real history, Miller’s book is non-fiction packed full with personal stories of involved airmen as well as actual surveys, reports, military assessments, journalists’ articles and other related historical records. Instead of boredom, I often couldn’t put the book down! I can honestly say I knew nothing of the history of the airmen, the creation and World War II history of the U.S and British Air Forces, or their war experiences and vital contributions to the Western war effort in Europe. Everything in this book was new to me!

I have copied the book blurb:

”The inspiration for the major Apple TV+ series, premiering January 26, 2024!

The riveting history of the American Eighth Air Force in World War II and the young men who flew the bombers that helped beat the Nazis and liberate Europe, brilliantly told by historian and World War II expert Donald L. Miller.

The Masters of the Air streaming series stars Austin Butler and Callum Turner, and is produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, the legendary duo behind Band of Brothers and The Pacific.

Masters of the Air is the deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitler’s doorstep. With the narrative power of fiction, Donald Miller takes you on a harrowing ride through the fire-filled skies over Berlin, Hanover, and Dresden and describes the terrible cost of bombing for the German people.

Fighting at 25,000 feet in thin, freezing air that no warriors had ever encountered before, bomber crews battled new kinds of assaults on body and mind. Air combat was deadly but periods of inactivity and anxiety were followed by short bursts of fire and fear. Unlike infantrymen, bomber boys slept on clean sheets, drank beer in local pubs, and danced to the swing music of Glenn Miller’s Air Force band, which toured US air bases in England. But they had a much greater chance of dying than ground soldiers.

The bomber crews were an elite group of warriors who were a microcosm of America—white America, anyway. The actor Jimmy Stewart was a bomber boy, and so was the “King of Hollywood,” Clark Gable. And the air war was filmed by Oscar-winning director William Wyler and covered by reporters like Andy Rooney and Walter Cronkite, all of whom flew combat missions with the men.

The Anglo-American bombing campaign against Nazi Germany was the longest military campaign of World War II, a war within a war. Until Allied soldiers crossed into Germany in the final months of the war, it was the only battle fought inside the German homeland.

Masters of the Air is a story of life in wartime England and in the German prison camps, where tens of thousands of airmen spent part of the war. It ends with a vivid description of the grisly hunger marches captured airmen were forced to make near the end of the war through the country their bombs destroyed.

Drawn from recent interviews, oral histories, and American, British, German, and other archives, Masters of the Air is an authoritative, deeply moving account of the world’s first and only bomber war.”

Everything in the book blurb represents what the reader will learn! I was fascinated, horrified, and disgusted by turns. What these airmen endured is incredible. It took American and British generals and airplane engineers three years to iron out the bugs of fighting a war with bombers and fighters since it had never been done before.

Quotes:

”Winter weather was brutally difficult for fliers on both sides. After completing high-altitude missions in poorly heated cockpits, American fighter pilots were sometimes so frozen and weak that they had to be pulled from their planes by medical teams. Ice two inches thick built up on the windscreens of fighters and bombers, causing accidents. Fliers also had difficulty relieving themselves. There were only two toilet facilities on a four-engine bomber, a tin can and a ���relief tube.’ Between the waist compartment and the tail there was a can with a lid on it, but as Jack Novey noted, “when you put your butt down on the toilet, the frozen metal would take part of your skin with it. So we just threw the damn thing out of the airplane.”


The author includes illustrations showing the architecture of a bomber, in which ten men would be squeezed inside. The skin of a bomber was very thin. Flak easily penetrated the airplanes, killing or maiming the men with horrifying injuries.

”But the Eighth Air Force had already done its indispensable duty. In the five-month battle for the air supremacy that made the invasion possible, the American Air Forces in Europe lost over 2,600 heavy bombers and 980 fighter planes and suffered 18,400 casualties, including 10,000 combat deaths over half as many men as the Eighth lost in all of 1942 and 1943. These airmen deserve on equal place in the national memory with the approximately 6,000 American soldiers killed, wounded, or missing in action ithe amphibious and airborne assault on D-Day.

”The slaughter at Falaise ended the eighty-day-long Battle of Normandy, the most decisive battle on the Western Front. The Germans lost over 400,000 combatants—killed, wounded, or captured—and the Allies suffered over 225,000 casualties, two-thirds of them Americans, among them 8,536 airmen killed and missing. The battle was a prelude to the liberation of Paris and the triumphant Allied drive across France to Germany’s western border, a campaign joined by Allied forces that landed on the coast of southern France on August 13.”

I quoted a paragraph about just one battle. The book seems to cover every bomber-involved battle in the book, each one told from personal narratives as well as how the bombing attack played out, and what the generals were thinking and the choices they made.

”…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 crws in the Pacific had a higher fatality rate: almost 23 percent. In addition, an estimated 28,000 Eighth Air Force crew members 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 quoted paragraphs near the end of the book which summarize the losses. The more individual stories as well as the history of how the American air force was slowly built up from a seven men and no airplanes to hundreds of thousands of men and airplanes, precede these paragraphs. What the individual pilots and crews felt in 1942 and 1943 when the airfields were being built in England, when the bombers were delivered, and how and what the generals were still arguing about in how best to deploy the bombers (night bombing or day bombing, with fighter support or none, synthetic oil plants or railroad marshaling yards, city centers or military targets), is gone into more detail.

”Eaker would increase the size of the Eighth Air Force in England from seven men and no planes in February 1942 to 185,000 men and 4,000 planes by December 1943.”

“In its first year of operations the Eighth Air Force’s greatest enemy was not flak or fighters, but weather and the elements. Good weather was a prerequisite for successful daylight bombing, but in the fall and winter of 1942, the weather over Northern Europe was unusually bad.”

“Unlike infantry, airmen could not get to the fight or stay in it without a highly complex technological support system—the bomber and its life-giving oxygen equipment. If it failed to function, which was often, they were helpless. Flying in the withering cold caused windows and gun sights to blur, bomb bay doors to ice over, and essential mechanical equipment to freeze and malfunction. Men also froze up and broke down. Flying in temperatures experienced on the ground only in the Arctic and Antarctic or on the peaks of immense mountains, frostbite did more damage than the enemy. In the Eighth’s first year of operations, 1,634 men were removed from flying duty for frostbite, over 400 more than were removed for combat wounds.”

“The whip-crack cold found most of its victims at exposed positions in the bombers: waist gunners at open windows, breasting heavy winds, and tail gunners who removed frozen canvas covers that impeded the movement of their guns. Ball turret gunners who were forced to remain the their turrets four hours over enemy territory urinated in their clothing, freezing their backs, buttocks and thighs “so badly muscles sloughed and bones were exposed.”

“At the end of every mission, men were hauled off planes with inflamed and swollen hands, feet, and faces. The wounds turned purple within a day or two, then a lurid black. One-third of the frostbite victims required hospitalization, mild cases kept men on the ground for up to two weeks.”

“Anoxia, or oxygen deprivation, was part of the “”aero-medical nightmare”” that afflicted the Eighth. Saliva or vomit from airsickness would get into the men’s molded rubber face masks and freeze, blocking the hose and causing men to pass out or even die.”

“Without oxygen at this altitude, you’re unconscious in thirty seconds. After two minutes you’re dead.”

“High-altitude aerial combat subjected bomber crews to emotional and physical stresses that human beings had never confronted before. Strange things happened to the human body when it entered the earth’s upper air. Men’s ears clogged up painfully, their minds and movements slowed down, and their stomachs and intestines expanded inordinately, a condition exacerbated by the gaseous food they had been fed at breakfast.”

“Grow and Col. Harry G. Armstrong, his cheif assistant in England, were pioneers in the new field of aviation medicine. In 1934 they had founded the Aero Medical Research Laboratory at Wright Field, near Dayton, Ohio, to study the effect of manned flight on the human organism. Shortly after the Eighth Air Force arrived in England, they established a small research center near High Wycombe, called the Central Medical Establishment. Headed by Armstrong, its mission was to develop training techniques and equipment to allow airmen to survive and perform to maximum efficiency in fhe first high-altitude war ever fought.”

“In its first year of operations, the Eighth had neither an air-sea rescue system nor a training program in ditching procedures.The inflatable dinghies and markers in its bombers were inadequate for the rigors of open sea survival, and the flares, K rations, and first aid packs all lacked waterproof protection. Nor were its bombers designed for easy egress in forced sea landings.”

“The Eighth Air Force would never find a way to bomb with maximum precision and maximum protection. This threw it into a conundrum that led irrevocably to carpet bombing, with some bombs hitting the target and the rest spilling all over the place.”

“While Rooney and some other reporters were waiting in front of a control tower for a squadron of bombers to return, word spread that a ball turret gunner was trapped in his plastic bubble underneath the plane…..””Just before landing, the Fortress’s hydraulic system, which was riddled with shell holes, malfunctioned, making it impossible for the pilot to put down the wheels. The emergency hand crank for operating the main landing gear has also been destroyed by enemy fire. The pilot would have to make a belly landing. “”There were eight minutes of gut-wrenching talk among the tower, the pilot, and the man trapped in the ball turret. He knew what comes down first when there are no wheels. We all watched in horror as it happened. We watched as this man’s life ended, mashed between the concrete pavement of the runway and the belly of the bomber.””

Rooney returned to London that evening, unable to write the most dramatic and ghastly story he had ever witnessed.”

It becomes obvious as readers follow the action from chapter to chapter, virtually EVERYTHING had never been done before in designing combat airplanes, and knowing how such airplanes would actually perform in combat. It doesn’t say so in the book, but it is clear the Air Forces of the Allies and the Axis were completely a beta experiment. They went from the drawing board straight into combat, with crossed fingers that what looked like it would work actually did. Also, pilots often were inexperienced in flying bombers as were their crews in handling their assigned tasks. It took many bombing runs to gain experience. Air Force crews learned best from surviving the bombing runs.

Needless to say, almost every airman suffered from what today we would call PTSD. They felt they KNEW they were going to die or be maimed everytime they took off on a bombing run.

”That winter [1943] there were distressing reports from flight surgeons and Air Force psychiatrists of abnormal behavior among the crewmen, as combat insidiously shook the moorings of the airmen’s self-control. Great numbers of fliers began to experience one or more of the symptoms of emotional disintegration: insomnia, irritability, sudden temper flashes, inability to concentrate, withdrawal from friends, nausea, weight loss, dizziness, blurring of vision, heart palpitations, Parkingson-like tremors, sexual impotence and aggressiveness, binge-drinking, and terrifying battle dreams, nightmares so alarmingly vivid that men screamed and shook, and a few of them fell out of their top bunks and shattered legs and arms.”


There is so much interesting, fascinating and awful information in this book, almost all of it I had absolutely no clue happened or had I ever before read about.

One chapter covers the how men from everywhere, all over America, Scotland, England, Wales, European countries confronted each other for the first time. Hint: it wasn’t all love and kisses despite fighting on the same side.

Another chapter is about the ground crews and how they maintained the airplanes, many of which came in on one engine with holes all over the body of the airplane.

There are chapters on the ‘art’ of bombing, where they bombed and what the results were. One such Blitz bombing which was ordered by commanders earned the name “Black Week” because of the horrible losses - 88 heavy bombers destroyed, 200 men lost. Before readers turn the last page, you will read of many many many types of Black Weeks. I am full of admiration at the cynical and black humor demonstrated by these brave fliers! The names the rank-and-file came up with to describe missions are really fun, if also incredibly bleak and a reminder of how little these guys expected to survive, as well as the grief of returning to barracks with bunks that only were filled by a third of the men who had left that morning.

There are chapters on what happened to the airmen who managed to bail out of their craft before it crashed. Some ended up in Switzerland, a supposedly neutral country (not, it was a country sympathetic to the Nazi’s, with Nazi’s working everywhere in important administrative jobs. One camp for prisoners was run by a particularly sadistic SS man.), or Sweden. Others ended up in horrible German camps, prisoners of war (POWs). While they were treated better than Jews and the Soviet (Russian) prisoners, they also starved, were covered in lice, and froze in poorly built barracks. If it wasn’t for once-a-week deliveries by the Red Cross, most would not have survived the war.

As it was, in one of the chapters the author describes how the Germans forced the airman POW camps to close when the war was near its end, and made the airmen do forced 500-mile marches to the west without food or water, in winter temperatures. At some point the marches would end, but then the Germans forced the men onto train cars without food, water or toilets, crammed shoulder to shoulder, barely room to sit with knees drawn up under chins. They were delivered to camps that were disgustingly filthy, smelling like cess pits, without maintenance, with guards that were not very focused on their care. By the time American infantry arrived, they were skeletal and in need of much medical care.

There is a lot of information in this book! So much more than I have written about above. For example, included are biographies of the many individuals who were involved with decisions, military leaders and politicians. There are photos, and extensive Notes, Bibiography and Index sections.

I highly recommend this book to everyone, but probably only the nerds will read it from cover to cover. But even if one only skims it for the bits they find interesting, it is of great value! As has been observed a trillion times, war is messy and awful. It is not a fight performed by superhumans that are all wise and good and humane in the prosecution of the war.

[Marc · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Sleepy Boy · Rating 5 out of 5]

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

[David Eppenstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this book some years ago, probably shortly after it was published in 2006. Whenever I read it it was before I became a GR member and definitely before I started to take the time to write in depth book reviews. My initial review merely recorded the fact that I thought the book was an excellent history and that I enjoyed reading it. After my second reading my opinion of the book remains the same. My second reading was prompted, however, by my participation in a public broadcast Zoom interview conducted with the author about 2 weeks ago. The interview took place at the WWII Museum in New Orleans and was done in conjunction with the promotion of an Apple TV series starting in January and based on Miller's book. The series has been created by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks and is being touted as the air war version of Ambrose's Band of Brothers which I had just recently read. Spielberg and Hanks have done some really good work together but my recollection of this book compared to Brothers had me shaking my head in wonder. Ambrose's book was about the WWII experiences of a specific Airborne infantry unit with specific named members and their individual stories. My recollection of Miller's book was that it was an excellent history. It occasionally mentioned individuals and recounted anecdotes of these people but the these men and their stories were not the focus of the narrative. What had me wondering further was Miller's discussion of how the series centered on the men of the 100th Bombardment Group and their history of bad breaks and hard luck. I couldn't recall this group or its members from my first reading and my curiosity lead me to a second reading of Masters. Was Masters an air war version of Brothers or is this series going to take liberties with an excellent history of the WWII air war in Europe? The series is definitely not going to be a documentary so I'm hoping whatever it is Spielberg and Hanks handle it well. But enough about this series what about the book?

As I have already stated this is an excellent history. I can't imagine you'd be able to find a better treatment of the Allied air war in WWII Europe. What is even better is that the book tracks the evolution of the Air Force from an obscure branch of the Army Signal Corps to its ultimate recognition as an independent branch of our armed services. The war brought on a metamorphosis of this under valued underfunded branch of the Army into the only American fighting force on the European continent until D-Day in June, 1944. For 2 1/2 years the only Americans fighting in Europe were flyers and the only stories to be told of that time were those of the Air Force. Miller does an admirable job of weaving the facts and figures of this metamorphosis with the horrors of air combat and the people that experienced these horrors. Not only are the material logistical issues reported but so are the medical and especially the mental health issues. This book is about as good an informative as well as entertaining a history that you can find. I have read other books by Miller and his writing talent holds true in all of his books that I have read. Now that I have finished this second reading of this book my curiosity has been satisfied. I have concluded that Masters and Brothers are entirely different kinds of books with different points of view. I now fear that the only thing this vaunted TV series and this book will have in common will be the title. Spielberg and Hanks do manage to do good work together so maybe I will be wrong which does happen...quite a bit actually. Enjoy.

[Hermien · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Kuszma · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Luisa Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

A choppy timeline and an introduction of numerous men make it a little hard to follow at first, but this book has a lot of truly interesting information to offer - so be sure to stick with it! I learned so much and am shocked that with all the WWII books I’ve read thus far, I hadn’t heard some things before; including Switzerland not being as neutral as “history” would have you think.

Content Considerations: two f-words, a sprinkling of b*tch and b*st*rd. Some blasphemy. Mentions the men sleeping around, having sex etc. numerous times and in varying degrees of detail. Mentions rapes and prostitution. A man was raped multiple times by other men in a prison. There are some very graphic descriptions of war wounds and cruel treatment of prisoners. Drinking, drunkenness, and smoking are mentioned.

This book is for mature readers.

[Kenneth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gave me a much better understanding of the air war over Europe. I thought I knew a lot about it but it’s almost like I was learning about it for the first time. Many parts are not suitable for youth but overall very very good.

[Eric Byrd · Rating 4 out of 5]

At the end of the 1990 film Memphis Belle the severely wounded radio operator played by Eric Stoltz is gently lowered from the shot-up bomber by his fellow crewmen after narrowly completing their tour-ending twenty-fifth mission. When John Lithgow, playing a glib, cringey public affairs officer (“You don’t have to call me sir. I’m Army PR, call me Bruce”), pushes his way to the stretcher and begins arranging the bloodied survivors for a photo op, the disgusted co-pilot, played by Tate Donovan, tosses him Stoltz’s personal camera and impatiently sneers, “Take the picture, Bruce.”

The scene is a perfect gem of bullshit, on two counts: it resolves a lame subplot that Hollywood loves, the Playboy Finally Gets Serious (Donovan’s cocky himbo initially made fast friends with Lithgow, drawn by his showbiz promises and his encouragement of the bratty bitching and cool-kid hauteur that Donovan’s character has been able to maintain, incredibly, through the terror of twenty-four previous missions over Nazi-occupied Europe); and it’s a surreal moment when one slick, selectively truthful piece of mass entertainment looks down its nose at another - when a fiction sneers at fictionality. The bomber Memphis Belle owes its undeserved celebrity, and the feature film its very existence, to the 1944 propaganda film Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress, directed by the Oscar-winner William Wyler, father of the feature film’s producer Catherine Wyler. “Make the picture, William.”

The history of this plane and its portrayals is an interesting furball. Wyler’s documentary included handheld 16mm footage shot inside other bombers on other missions, and the film’s intercom calls are dubbed-in voice-overs recorded while the Belle’s crew viewed that footage in post-production - an eerie parallel with the Army Air Force’s treatment of psychiatric casualties, some of whom were dosed with Sodium Pentothal, “the so-called truth serum” which produced “a dreamy state of semi-consciousness, during which doctors, in a semi-darkened room, aggressively probed and provoked the patient, trying to induce him to relive the traumatic experience.” Doctors reported:

The therapist can play the role of a fellow crewmate, calling out fighters or flak in various positions, warning of an imminent ditching or asking for help with a wounded buddy…In some men the situation is relived with such intensity that [the patient]...may wander about the room as if about the plane, or, using the pillow or bedclothes as armor plate…may wince and cower at flak and cannon bursts…The terror exhibited in moments of supreme danger, such as during explosions within the plane, the falling of a plane, the mutilation or death of a friend before the flier’s eyes, is electrifying to watch. As the event approaches, the body becomes increasingly tense and rigid. The eyes widen and the pupils pilate, while the skin becomes covered with a fine perspiration. The hands move about convulsively, seeking a support, a protection, or a weapon or a friend to share the danger. Breathing becomes incredibly rapid and shallow. The intensity of emotion becomes more than can be borne and frequently at the height of the reaction, there is a collapse.

The B-17s Delta Rebel II and Hell’s Angels completed their 25 missions before the Belle. When Robert Morgan, the Belle’s captain, asked Wyler what he would have done had the crew been shot down on that last mission, Wyler answered: “No problem. We have plenty of film on Hell’s Angels.” While scouting crews at bomber bases, Wyler liked the Belle’s nod to Morgan’s Memphis-born fiance; that was a good “angle.” As it turned out, Morgan and the woman never married. “Their relationship,” writes Miller, “was torn apart by the pressing demands” - cough cough - “of the Air Force’s public relations tour.” Morgan finished the nationwide tour hitched to a woman named Dotty, a fellow North Carolinian, and the bomber he flew after transfer to the Pacific, in missions over Japan, he named Dauntless Dotty.

Of the 1990 performances, I very much admire Matthew Modine’s portrayal of the Belle’s captain as a firm, fatherly, coolly composed leader of men (years earlier Modine turned down the role of Maverick in Top Gun for its being too boyish and “jingoistic”). Modine’s character bears the burden of command soberly, and talks to the pin-up painted on his plane as to a revered wife, while Morgan was a heavy drinker with several English girlfriends. “When I went to the officer’s club after a mission, there would usually be a few faces missing,” Morgan told Miller in a 2003 interview. “I would concentrate on the scotch in front of me. That scotch was my instrument panel through those nighttime navigations…the only antidote I had for all those exploding B-17s that haunted my dreams.”

[Creighton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book because I recently watched the TV series that came out based on it and my neighbor works at a local thrift store and someone gave her a small box that had WW2 pins, patches and dog tags. She gave them to me; I researched the dog tags and found out they belonged to 1st lieutenant Wilmar G Zembower, who flew 35 missions with the 8th Air Force, over Germany. I read this book with this hero in mind.

The book covered the things I was expecting it would cover,but I do feel that after reading this that I truly need to study the air war more, because the facts aren’t as solid for me on this topic of the Second World War as others might be. I think it did justice to the men who served and I think it presented a balanced view on strategic bombing, pointing out the destruction that it wrought but also showing that Germany brought this on herself by supporting Nazism, pillaging Europe and waging war against innocent people. This isn’t a book concerned about the ethics of strategic bombing so I’ll leave talking about that subject.


I find it interesting how the “bomber barons” truly believed that air power could end a war and be so effective that there would be no need for infantry. Boy, were they proven wrong. I also consider it a blunder that those who pushed for Fortress bomber didn’t think to push for a fighter like the P-51 Mustang, and it baffles my mind how they didn’t think a fighter like the Mustang was needed or possible until 1943/44.

I also found it sad, emotional and interesting reading the stories of these men who lost friends, were taken prisoner, or lost their lives. One story that stuck out to me was the long hidden story about how the swiss government mistreated American fliers. Why is this not mentioned?

I especially was saddened reading the part about Glenn Millers death.

I have a new-found respect for actors Clark Gable and Jimmy Stewart, because they didn’t use their privilege as actors to shirk from duty, they took on tough missions, they looked out for their crew, and that is commendable.


The book also mentions the criticism that people had about and have about the air war, and that’s the idea that it did nothing really to contribute to victory. Donald Miller has me convinced that it did and that the Germans would’ve held out longer if there was no strategic bombing.

I would recommend this book, check it out, I picked it up at the local library, you might just enjoy it.

[Scott · Rating 1 out of 5]

Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany by Donald L. Miller is the story of the American bomber crews during world War II. There are lots of stories, and Miller seems compelled to tell every one of them. The book is long and seems to go on and on and on. I am a big fan of history and in particular World War II history. But the book seemed longer than the war itself. Miller could have improved the book greatly by doing a little editing. The other challenge I had with the book is that he seemed to be thrilled when a crew bombed a city full of women and children. I realize there are collateral damage during war, and that the American’s did not start the war, but did he have to be so thrilled at the endless killing of innocents. I found this book a challenge to read. It was far from enjoyable. It was not inspirational, which it should have been. There are better books out there on the air war of World War II. My recommendation, is to skip this gargantuan monstrosity.

[Thomas George Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

According to Dr. Miller the Swiss were not as neutral during World War Two as they had historically claimed. According to a former prisoner, pilot, Donald Arthur Waters opined, that "The Swiss government's holding of American flyers as hostages and their reason for doing so was one of the best kept secrets of World War Two."

Also too were the harsh prison camps run by the Swiss; the most horrendous was Wauwilermoos; in English it means "prison camp at the Swamp of Wauwil." It was this prison where American and English flyers were sent after they were shot down.

Any student of World Two history will find this book and excellent read.

[MJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started watching the TV adaptation of this book and was interested in learning the details missing from the show. This book has quite a bit of crossover with Malcom Gladwell's Bomber Mafia. Where the show mostly follows the 100th, this book is a broader overview of the whole aerial bombardment of Germany.

I really enjoyed the sections about Clark Gable's enlistment into the Air Force. The descriptions of the POW camps and the fire bombing of Dresden are truly terrible and not top of my mind when considering the history of WWII.

[John Nellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Gary Perkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the book is very interesting with a ton of details and facts from all facets of the war that I was unaware of, the books lacks the personal storytelling of following some of the bomber crews which I was expecting from other WW2 history books. Not a fault of the book, just didn’t meet my expectations. This is a great history book, and less a collection of memoirs following the Bomber Boys

[Steve B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the book contains many very interesting individual stories, it rambles too much from one place to another...from personal narrative to tactical second-guessing, to political perspective.

[Tanner Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first picked up “Masters of the Air” before my eldest son was born. I tore through the first three- or four-hundred pages. It’s almost everything I’d ever wanted in a history of the world’s most terrible war. The men and women, but mostly men, who star in its pages are honest-to-goodness heroes. They stared death in the face and suffered the worst casualty rates of any branch of the military. For that, I admire them greatly. “Masters of the Air” is very good and it deserves your attention. The details described within are often new and frequently revelatory. No modern author has covered the topic as thoroughly as Miller.

The eponymous “Masters of the Air” are the United States Army Air Forces’ ‘Bloody Hundredth’ 100th Bomb Group. As some of the first Americans in the theater, these flyers from the Eighth Air Force drew the shortest straw imaginable: confront the world’s most intimidating Air Force—the Luftwaffe—on its own turf. After arriving in England in the summer of 1943 (American air operations commenced there in August 1942), fewer than a fourth of all Eighth Air Force crew members could expect to survive to the end of his tour of duty (twenty-five combat missions). "Only 14 percent of fliers assigned to Major Egan's Bomb Group when it arrived in England in May 1943 made it to their twenty-fifth mission" (Miller, p. 7). (Major John Egan and his best friend, Major Gale Cleven, appear in Apple TV+'s epic miniseries, "Masters of the Air," which released earlier this year.) “By the end of the war, the Eighth Air Force would have more fatal casualties—26,000–than the entire United States Marine Corps. Seventy-seven percent of the Americans who flew against the Reich before D-Day would wind up as casualties” (Miller, p. 7). Yet, for most Americans, the heroes who mastered Germany's skies remain ancillary to the "real" story. This is the real objective of Donald Miller's history: he brings their stories straight to the front, forcing readers to confront incredible stories of ingenuity, foolishness, and bravery.

Until the Second World War, the efficacy of air power and the details of its use were unknown. Military academics had done little more than speculate on its utility between the First and Second World Wars. In other words, air grand strategy was still in its infancy. Both Axis and Allied Air Force generals had promised their leadership that air power alone could win the war. They were all wrong. Air power, as it existed from 1940-1945, was incapable of winning any war. As it grew in terrible power, so it grew in majesty in the eyes of all who beheld it. The celestial streams of darkly-painted bombers, whose only purpose was to scour cities in terrible infernos of hell’s own fire were some of the most advanced tools in the arsenal of humanity at that point.

By the end of the war, their time had already been eclipsed by a new, more awesome, weapon: the atomic bomb. After the war, theories of air power no longer pre-supposed that great masses of bombers could be used to subdue an enemy. Instead, the world's militaries pivoted to how best to use their air forces to deploy nuclear weapons. In one sense, World War II was the apex of the air force. Never again will we witness hundreds of bombers, arrayed in neat, gleaming formations, droning overhead. They have been supplanted by faster, sleeker, armies of one like the B-2 Spirit, B-21 Raider, and B-52 Stratofortress. Each one of these can release, in one munition, more destructive power than that unleashed by the entire United States Army Air Force between 1941-1945.

This book is much more than a catalogue of the horrors inflicted on (and by) the Bloody Hundredth. It sheds light on stories previously untold, like Swiss concentration camps that imprisoned American bomber crew in conditions unmatched anywhere outside Germany and Russia. (Records of Swiss misdeeds "inexplicably disappeared from every library and scholarly repository in Switzerland" by the time of the book's publication (Miller, p. 338).) Each story is told in breathtaking detail and with inscrutable honesty. One chapter ("Liberated Skies") proves that the USAAF bomber crews knew they were engaging civilian targets. Some recoiled from participating in the "murder business." The Eighth Air Force dealt with thousands of psychiatric casualties and alcohol abuse was rampant. The months between August 1943 and June 1944 were dark indeed.

One of my favorite actors, Jimmy Stewart, flew in bomber raids over Germany during this period. By the time he enlisted in the Army Air Forces, he was already an accomplished and award-winning actor. Yet he did not recoil from facing the same dangers as other ignominious flyers. He carried the weight of war home with him. When filming "It's A Wonderful Life," (my favorite film), he suffered from bouts of PTSD and used the film as catharsis. The psychological scars of the war were exceptionally deep among the bomber crews of the Eighth Air Force. Most of this was due to the sheer terror and panic they felt in the frigid skies above the Third Reich, but some of this was caused by the lack of a clean break between "work" and "rest." Soldiers on the frontline, for example, faced the Germans for weeks or months on end before rotating back to "safety" in the rear. Bomber crews, however, might enjoy a pleasant dinner with their friends and girlfriends the night before a big raid and return to the same bar the next night with only half the same complement as the night before.

Stories of the Second World War are a dime a dozen at this point. Bookstores are awash with histories, novels, and editorials that explain its brutality. Books as exceptional as "Masters of the Air" are rare. I think we owe it to the men of the Bloody Hundredth to memorialize their sacrifices by reading and remembering their stories.

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Larry Bassett · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the subtitle of this book and assumed it was a collection of war stories from 8th Air Force crewmen. I'm not a huge fan of oral history but decided to give it a shot anyway. Wow was I pleasantly surprised. It is much, much more than an oral history. MASTERS OF THE AIR examines the entire experience of the 8th AF from POWs to its portrayal in movies and books to race relations to the effect of the American air bases on the social fabric of the English countryside to the whole question of the viability of strategic bombardment. Miller is incredibly well read on a vast amount of literature relating to the air campaign over Europe and draws on many of these sources to produce a rich first-rate history. There is something in MASTERS for any fan of history.

I particularly enjoyed his handling of the sticky question of whether strategic bombing was a success. From the point of view of the pre-war bomber barons the answer is "no". Heavy bombers alone were not able to defeat Germany. But the more important question is whether the damage they did inflict was worth the effort put forth and the answer to that is a resounding "yes".

Miller does a fine job though of making clear that the strategic bombing was not the sole mission of the 8th. Throughout late 1943 and early 1944 the main mission of the 8th was too break the Luftwaffe fighter force by hitting targets the Jagdwaffe would be force to defend and then shooting down the German fighters. Destruction of the Luftwaffe was a pre-requisite for Operation Overlord and the 8th was the only force able to carry it out. German fighter routinely avoided combat with Allied fighters- it took attacks on key targets by bombers to bring them out where American escorts could get them.

Coincidently this campaign against German airpower also paved the way for later campaigns against oil and transportation targets in Germany. This is where strategic bombing came into it's own. It was never able to win the war alone but it severely curtailed German production efforts in the last months of the war and shortened the war by months.

I'm only touching the surface of what MASTERS offers. If you have any interest in the air war over Europe or the 8th Air Force I strongly recommend this book. It is sure to be the standard history of the 8th.

[Zach Koenig · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Rafa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este libro me ha sorprendido porque no esperaba prácticamente nada y, aunque me hubiera gustado algo más de profundidad técnica e histórica, la verdad es que se defiende bastante bien.

Me explico. Para los que sean aficionados a la historia no hace falta que les cuente la evolución de los documentales de este tipo. Hace unos años, más bien lustros, podíamos ver documentales más o menos profundos o interesantes sobre diferentes momentos de la historia, desde los egipcios y romanos a la Segunda Guerra Mundial, pasando por la Edad Media y Napoleón. Pasaron los años y ya sólo se podían ver documentales sobre la Segunda Guerra Mundial y cada vez más malos (puñeteras dramatizaciones), pero en los últimos tiempos ya lo único que se ve son extraterrestres y cazadores de “diferentes mierdas – Rellene con lo que más le guste”. Pues me temo que, de un tiempo a esta parte, a los libros de historia les está pasando algo por el estilo. Y eso es lo que me temía, pero, para bien, no se cumplió mi profecía.

Este es un libro ágil que cuenta lo que se necesita saber, algo cojo en temas más profundos y más basado en las “vivencias” de los tripulantes que en estrategias, pero que cumple como piedra sobre la que edificar algo más sólido mediante otras lecturas.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Gerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Mika Van Moorselaar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learned a lot of new aspects of the war from this book. I must say it’s also a lot better than the series.

The moral part about bombing city’s with a lot of civilian casualties really opened my eyes. I knew Germany got bombed a lot during the war, but never knew it was this much. Till what extend can you fight ‘the’ enemy and telling yourself you’re doing a good job. Sad to that’s these thing are still happening.

[Mac · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.