Masters of the air : America's bomber boys who fought the air war against Nazi Germany

850 Pages·2007·3.02 MB·English

by  Miller

Also by Donald L. Miller
D-Days in the Pacific
The Story of World War II
City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America
Lewis Mumford, A Life
The Lewis Mumford Reader
The Kingdom of Coal: Work, Enterprise, and Ethnic Communities in the Mine
Fields
(with Richard Sharpless)
The New American Radicalism

SIMON & SCHUSTER
Rockefeller Center
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Copyright © 2006 by Donald L. Miller All rights reserved,
including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon &
Schuster, Inc.
Maps by Paul Pugliese
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Miller, Donald L., date.
Masters of the air: America’s bomber boys who fought the air war against Nazi
Germany / Donald L. Miller.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. World War, 1939–1945—Aerial operations, American. 2. United States.
Army Air Forces. Air Force, 8th—History. 3. World War, 1939–1945—
Campaigns—Western Front. 4. Bomber pilots—United States—Biography. I.
Title.
D790.228th.M55 2006
940.54'4973—dc22 2006050461
ISBN-10: 0-7432-9832-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-9832-2
Photo Credits
Hundredth Bomb Group Archives, Historian, Michael Faley: 4, 5. Louis
Loevsky: 44. Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum, Savannah, Georgia: 3, 7, 8, 9,
10, 13, 14, 18, 22, 28, 29, 30, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 45, 46. National
Archives and Record Administration, College Park, Maryland: 1, 2, 6, 11, 12,
15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 31, 32, 39, 42, 43.
Visit us on the World Wide Web:
http://www.SimonSays.com
To the gang at the Black Cat Bar:
Alyssa, Alexis, Ashlee, Devin,
Austin, and Mason
Contents
Prologue: The Bloody Hundredth
ONE
The Bomber Mafia
TWO
Eaker’s Amateurs
THREE
The Dangerous Sky
FOUR
Airman Down!
FIVE
The Anatomy of Courage
SIX
Teach Them to Kill
SEVEN
The Bells of Hell
EIGHT
Men at War
NINE
The Turning
TEN
Liberated Skies
ELEVEN
The Fatal Trap
TWELVE
Prisoners of the Swiss
THIRTEEN
My Bellyful of War
FOURTEEN
The Wire
FIFTEEN
Terror Without End
SIXTEEN
The Chimneys Hardly Ever Fall Down
SEVENTEEN
A Pageant of Misery
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
In the spring of 1944…we were masters in the air. The bitterness of the
struggle had thrown a greater strain on the Luftwaffe than it was able
to bear…. For our air superiority, which by the end of 1944 was to
become air supremacy, full tribute must be paid to the United States
Eighth Air Force.
WINSTON CHURCHILL, Closing the Ring
There was a consciousness always of the presence of his comrades
about him. He felt the subtle battle brotherhood more potent even than
the cause for which they were fighting. It was a mysterious fraternity
born of the smoke and danger of death.
STEPHEN CRANE, The Red Badge of Courage