by Robert F. Dorr6.25 x 9.25, 336 pages
20 b/w photos, 2 maps
ISBN: 978-0-7603-3898-8
$28.00 / $30.00 CAN / £20.00
BUY NOW!
"Told largely in the vivid words of the veterans themselves, the story puts you in the freezing-cold cockpit for a white-knuckle mission over heavily fortified enemy territory."
—Air Force Times
Between 1940 and 1945, the western Allies flew 314 bombing missions to Berlin. Germany’s capital was its largest city, the richest metropolitan center on the European continent, the sixth-largest city in the world—and a legitimate military target. It housed the headquarters of the Third Reich and the German armed forces. It had a dozen aircraft assembly plants and a similar number of factories for military vehicles. It was a vital rail and transportation hub. By any measurement, Berlin was the heart of the Reich, and it was protected to a degree befitting that status.
Berlin’s antiaircraft defenses stretched across more than forty miles of searchlights, flak batteries, and airfields brimming with German air force fighters—up to 1,600 combat-capable warplanes. Royal Air Force Lancaster crews ran this gauntlet under cover of darkness, carrying out the most sustained effort against a German city during the war. While the Britons went after cities at night, the Americans went after installations by day. Outgoing and returning bombers would sometimes pass each other in the early morning as the sun rose on the Reich.
The U.S. Eighth Air Force began its war on Berlin on March 4, 1944, followed by an all-out assault two days later, and, after a hiatus, continued from late 1944 until war’s end. The February 3, 1945, mission was the next-to-last major Eighth Air Force effort against Berlin and the largest bombing mission undertaken against a single target. Robert F. Dorr brings this mission to life through the words of official reports, airmen’s diaries, and his personal interviews of hundreds of veterans.
Mission to Berlin takes the reader on a World War II strategic bombing mission from the airfields of England to Berlin and back. Told largely in the veterans’ own words, Mission to Berlin covers all the players in a long-range bombing run, including pilots and other aircrew, ground crew, and escort fighters that accompanied the heavy bombers on their perilous missions. Long stretches of quiet flight high above the fields of Europe were punctuated by moments of intense danger and adrenalin as flak sliced through the hull and crew alike and German fighters pounced on the Allied aircraft. Bomber crews also faced high-altitude cold, lack of oxygen, fires, and explosions of their own ordnance, as well as crash landings or bailouts that could kill them or turn them into prisoners of war. As they fought their way across Europe, hoping to beat the odds and survive the maximum thirty-five combat missions, they often thought, “I hope we get Hitler today.”
About Robert F. Dorr
Robert F. Dorr is an Air Force veteran, a retired senior American diplomat, and the author of 60 books and thousands of magazine articles and newspaper columns about the Air Force and air warfare. He is a columnist for Air Force Times newspaper and writes the "Washington Watch" feature for Aerospace America magazine.
Bob has interviewed hundreds of veterans of World War II and maintains a photography archive of Air Force combat operations. Bob served in the Air Force in Korea (1957-60), and was a Foreign Service embassy at American embassies and consulates (1964-89) before becoming a fulltime author.
Bob is co-author of Hell Hawks! The Untold Story of the American Fliers Who Savaged Hitler’s Wehrmacht, the best-selling book ever at the Air & Space Museum in Washington DC (over 20,000 copies sold).
In the past, Bob has also written for Air and Space Smithsonian, Aerospace America, Flight Journal, as well as Air Forces Monthly, Air Power History, and many other publications. His book Air Force One, a history of presidential aircraft and air travel, has been praised by critics. Other recent books by Robert F. Dorr include Korean Air War, co-authored with Warren Thompson, and the Alpha Bravo Guide to the U. S. Army. Bob lives in Oakton, Virginia, with his family and Labrador retriever.
