The bomber crews of World War II left the security of their bases night after night to fly into the heart of enemy territory. In this compelling history of the campaigns they fought, Robert Jackson draws on eye-witness accounts, as well as his own experience as a military pilot, to tell the stories of men overcoming immense danger and terrible odds in pursuit of victory. In telling detail Jackson describes the heavy American losses in the Schweinfurt-Regensburg campaign, when more than 300 Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses aimed to crush Germany's aircraft production but which cost more than 60 planes as it ventured beyond the protection of escorting fighters, and the RAF night raid on Nürnberg, when the Allies lost over 150 heavy bombers and nearly 1,300 aircrew. More poignantly, he tells the inspiring stories of the French crew who became the first Allied airmen to bomb Berlin and the six RAF Lancasters who risked everything to fly deep into Germany in daylight.
