The air offensive against the German Reichwhich began in 1940 with the dropping of leafletsevolved into a massive armada that pulverized vast swathes of Germany, severely impaired its war-making capability, and killed hundreds of thousands. By day, the Flying Fortresses of the US Air Forces "Mighty Eighth" faced off against the day fighters of the *Luftflotte Reich*; then came the turn of Bomber Commands Lancasters to fend off the deadly predators of the night fighter force. Throughout the war years, the tactics and technology of Allied escort fighters evolved just as rapidly as those of their German interceptor counterparts. For the Allied airmen who fought in this war, the cost was appallingly high; for those who stood against themboth in the air and on the groundit was even higher. As the bombing campaign intensified, the German High Command found itself compelled to divert ever-increasing resources in an attempt to defeat the Allied air offensiveresources that were urgently needed elsewhere: both on the Russian Front and, following D-Day on June 6, 1944, on the new Western Front. This book, covering one of the most controversial campaigns of the Second World War, is written from the perspective of "the other side" and is told, as far as possible, through the words of the veterans themselves.
