Mighty and Victorious

How the Eighth Air Force and Its First Missions Changed the Air War in Europe, 1942-43
Step into the cockpit with the daring airmen who launched America’s fight for victory in Europe.

Known as the Mighty Eighth and more recently as Masters of the Air, the U.S. Eighth Air Force was the most famous American air unit of World War II. From its activation in early 1942 as the VIII Bomber Command through the end of the war, the Eighth was a formidable fighting force, with a peak strength of more than 200,000 men and a devastating arsenal of bombers and fighters. An impressively detailed account based on primary sources, Mighty and Victorious follows the men and planes of the Eighth Air Force into the skies over Europe, where its missions played a pivotal role in winning victory in World War II.

On August 17, 1942, the Eighth launched its first mission of the war as a dozen B-17 Flying Fortresses took off from an airfield in England to attack a German-controlled railyard in northern France. The pace and scale of operations accelerated over the next year, and the Eighth’s bombers flew missions against various targets across western Europe: primarily U-boat bases on France’s west coast, but also attacks on cities and towns like Rotterdam and support for the Dieppe raid. In mid-1943, the Allies began the Combined Bomber Offensive, a strategic operation targeting German industry, and the Eighth formed a critical component of those missions. On July 25, 1943, more than 300 bombers attacked Germany, with one third striking the industrial port of Hamburg.

With meticulous attention to detail, Mighty and Victorious reconstructs the missions of the Eighth Air Force from take-off to landing, describing combat action, strategy and tactics, weather, targets, and damage, as well as Luftwaffe counterattacks and ground-based antiaircraft operations. Never losing sight of the human dimension, the book includes numerous eyewitness accounts from the Eighth’s pilots, aircrews, and ground crews who flew the planes into flak and fire, repaired the damage and kept the bombers in the sky, and risked their lives on every mission. Mighty and Victorious ranks among the most comprehensive treatments of an air unit ever assembled.

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