Men Of Air

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"There were many ways for a combat crew to die during Bomber Command's war of 1944. Over German territory, bursts of hea... (more)

"There were many ways for a combat crew to die during Bomber Command's war of 1944. Over German territory, bursts of heavy flak could tear the wings from their plane in a split second. Bullets and cannon shells from German fighters could explode their fuel tanks, cut their oxygen supplies, destroy their engines. They were not even safe from their own high-flying colleagues, and many RAF aircraft were downed by British bombs. In the spring of that year, thousands of young men were shot, blown up, or thrown from their planes five miles above the earth. If they escaped the perils of the target they often then faced the subtler dangers of ice and fog as they tried to land their battered aircraft back home." "The winter of 1944 was the most dangerous time to be a combat airman in RAF Bomber Command. The chances of surviving a tour fell to just one in five on many squadrons, and morale finally hit rock bottom. In this comprehensive history of the air war that year, Kevin Wilson describes the most dangerous period of the Battle of Berlin, and the unparalleled losses over Magdeburg, Leipzig and Nuremberg. He tells how ordinary men coped with the constant pressure of flying, the loss of their colleagues, and the threat of death or capture. Using material from more than 100 interviews that he conducted with ex-Bomber Command aircrew, including former Dambusters, he tells the story of the famous events of this period - the Great Escape, D-Day, the defeat of the V1 menace. And in his gripping description of how the RAF bottled up the Wehrmacht and throttled Axis oil production he shows how, through sheer grit and determination, the 'Men of Air' finally turned the tide against the Germans."--BOOK JACKET. (less)