Every segment of military strategy and skill mattered during America’s involvement in the war, beginning after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. Miller chose to zoom in on the bomber boys of the U.S. Eighth Air Force, which suffered more losses during the war than the U.S. Marine Corps but also inflicted catastrophic damage on the German war effort.
Comprehensive maps showing American bombardments in Germany appear first in this hefty book—at almost 700 pages. Map keys indicate the types of targets the Eighth Air Force was after, including shipbuilding facilities, naval bases, aircraft factories, railway centers, and oil refineries.
But it is the excerpt from journalist Andy Rooney’s memoir “My War” that serves as the book’s jumping-off point. On the prologue’s first page is this:
“The Eighth Air Force was one of the great fighting forces in the history of warfare. It had the best equipment and the best men, all but a handful of whom were civilian Americans, educated and willing to fight for their country and a cause they understood was in danger—freedom. It’s what made World War II special.”
While the patriotism is evident in Rooney’s statement, Miller probes the nitty gritty of the Eighth’s command and its combat wings. He even includes a chart showing the chain of command from the top-tier Bomber Command all the way down to Squadron, comprising approximately 12 aircraft.
However, the author makes certain that readers understand the strategy of establishing a strong force of bombers was about more than just logistics. Each mission was dangerous and personal. Chapter 3’s “The Dangerous Sky” is the account of a Sept. 6, 1942 mission focused on taking out an aircraft factory. Paul Tibbets, Eighth Air Force commander, conveys the sobering nature of watching a fellow bomber crash:
“Up to now, the war was a game to us; we took off, dropped our bombs, and always returned safely. We thought we were supermen and that we were beating the odds with our skill in play. That was how stupidly inflated our confidence was until we watched [a] plane spin out of control, [and] burst into a ball of flame.”
Often, pilots had to concentrate on more than accurately flying over targets. Tibbets shares another account:
“There was chaos in the cabin. I was trying to fly the plane with one hand and keep [Lt. Gene] Lockhart from bleeding to death with the other. While he held his shattered hand above his head, I grasped his wrist tightly with my right hand and tried to maintain level flight at the same time.”
In order for readers to truly grasp the minutiae of the missions, Miller includes a cross section illustration of a Boeing B-17. Each manned section of the “aluminum skin” plane—“so thin that you could poke a hole through it with a screwdriver”—was essential. But one particularly precarious dilemma was when bombs “got stuck in their racks on the bomb run.” When that happened, “a crewman had to balance himself on the catwalk as he tried to release them by hand.”
Despite the magnitude of a bomber boy’s job, as well as the mental and emotional toll of killing Germans and watching fellow pilots die, “No one who survived considered himself a hero,” Miller noted, adding, “Men who carried out unimaginable acts of courage in the air would scream with fear in their sleep.”
Besides delving into what it took to be a bomber boy, this book also spotlights the historically recognizable people that played a role, such as Glenn Miller, Joseph Kennedy Jr., Kurt Vonnegut, Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, and others.
It behooves readers of “Masters of the Air” to read the acknowledgements to learn the author’s motivation for writing it:
“Looking back, I realize that this book began the moment I discovered my father’s World War II Army Air Forces flying jacket in my grandparents’ attic. … The jacket finally became mine after I saw Gregory Peck in ‘Twelve O’Clock High,’ the finest movie ever made on the Eighth Air Force.”
