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Masters of the Air

How the Bomber Boys Broke Down the Nazi War Machine

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Masters of the Air

By: Donald L. Miller
Narrated by: Robertson Dean
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

‘Seconds after Brady’s plane was hit, the Hundredth’s entire formation was broken up and scattered by swarms of single-engine planes, and by rockets launched by twin-engine planes that flew parallel.'

Meet the Flying Fortresses of the American Eighth Air Force, Britain’s Lancaster comrades, who helped to bring down the Nazis.

Historian and World War II expert Donald Miller brings us the story of the bomber boys who brought the war to Hitler's doorstep. Unlike ground soldiers, they slept on clean beds, drank beer in local pubs and danced to the swing music of the travelling Air Force bands. But they were also an elite group of fighters who put their lives on the line in the most dangerous role of all.

Miller takes listeners from the adrenaline-filled battles in the sky, to the airbases across England, the German prison camps and onto the ground to understand the devastation faced by civilians.

Drawn from interviews, oral histories and American, British and German archives, Masters of the Air is the authoritative, deeply moving and important account of the world's first and only bomber war.

©2020 Donald L. Miller (P)2020 Penguin Audio Historical Military Military & War World War II War Air Force US Air Force Inspiring Thought-Provoking Imperialism Aviation Submarine

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All stars
Most relevant
Awesome book, full of detail from the end of ww1 right through to the end of ww2 , you will not be disappointed (even though the narrators voice is a bit drawl at times lol ) 10/10

Masters of the air

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Very detailed and graphic and covered many of the airmen’s back stories. Excellent . And very informative

The graphic details

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Brilliant book and exactly what I was looking for! I'd already watched the TV series Masters of the Air and then read this book. I'd recommend doing it the other way around as the book provides so many insights across WWII when it comes to the American Airforce in Europe and really helped me to understand the show itself and so much more.

The stories of the bomber boys were incredible and equally unimaginable. I learned a lot from this book.

Excellent insightful history

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This is an exhaustive history of "The Mighty Eighth" bookending the famous air force with bomber theory from Mitchell & Douet to the Nuremburg trials. It is critical but not excoriating - and covers not just an academic review of the air war over Europe but also delves into oral and social history. It is brutal in its honest, touching in its compassion and full in its depth and breadth of the subject. It not only offers a broad brush approach to the strategic bombing offensive, but also a macroscopic view of some of the boys who flew with that force.

The narration is by and large excellent with a few exceptions relating to pronunciation of some German words and names, Robertson Dean's dark brown voice bringing gravitas to an important, yet often harrowing, subject.

I wrote my Honours degree dissertation on the Mighty 8th, and yet this added to what I consider to be a good deal of knowledge and I was unable to fault it in any meaningful way. This is required listening for anyone who is even remotely interested in the history of air warfare and/or WWII in general.

One of the best 8th USAAF histories out there

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25 hours long and still too short. Good narration too, I loved this book.

Powerful History lesson

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