Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In 1944, British and American military leaders knew that for the land invasion of Western Europe to succeed, the Allies would have to cripple both the German Luftwaffe and the country's aircraft manufacturing industry. Military historian Yenne (Aces High) uses memoirs of the pilots and commanding officers on both sides as well as official sources to document how the Allied thinking on aerial bombing campaigns evolved from tactical raids with limited aims to a strategic doctrine that included wiping out critical armament production centers in order to change the course of the war. But that evolution did not occur overnight and Yenne explores how the younger generation of military men gradually convinced their elders, who had cut their teeth in WWI, that to defeat the Third Reich, new thinking was essential. Those realizations culminated in the aerial assault on Germany during a rare week of clear weather in February that allowed the allied air forces to rain down 10,000 tons of bombs on key German factory cities. Yenne's sure prose and sharp insights on the men and aircraft that cleared the way for the Allies to launch the Normandy Invasion is a gripping account that aficionados of the era will savor. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Military and aviation historian Yenne (U.S. Guided Missiles, 2012, etc.) documents the events of the week beginning February 20th, 1944, during which Nazi Germany's aircraft industry and air defenses were destroyed, contributing to the preparation for the D-Day invasion. The author provides a day-by-day account of what took place as German industrial facilities were targeted for attack. Yenne skillfully situates the action, pulling together various threads. He summarizes briefly the history of strategic bombing from its origins in Italy and Russia during World War I, and he highlights the recruitment and deployment of the intelligence teams that profiled the German economy and war machine to identify bottlenecks and target them to be destroyed. Yenne examines the creation and development of the many aircraft armadas that took to the skies that February from their bases in eastern England. This is an amazing story in which planning and organization--such as the ever-increasing flow of materiel into the U.K.--combined perfectly with ingenuity and luck (the weather in that February week was ideal but almost unprecedented). Yenne then takes up the effectiveness of the America's daytime bombing campaign as both the number of bombers and the range of their fighter escorts increased. Ultimately, the setbacks of late 1943, when losses of bombers and flight crews to German air defense forces became almost unsustainable, were reversed. Yenne also shows how the bombing campaign finally helped break the back of Hitler's war economy. Well-written and fast-paced, this will be compelling to specialists and general readers alike.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
