Mission to Berlin: The American Airmen Who Struck the Heart of Hitler's Reich

Robert F. Dorr's critically acclaimed World War II bombing narrative, now available in paperback format. The western Allies flew 314 bombing missions to Berlin between 1940 and 1945. Germany's capital was its largest city, the richest metropolitan center on the European continent, the sixth-largest city in the world--and it had been declared a legitimate military target. In Mission to Berlin, Robert F. Dorr - author of Hell Hawks! and Mission to Tokyo and one of today's most prolific military historians - takes the reader on a World War II bombing mission from the airfields of England to Berlin and back. Told largely in the veterans' own words, Mission to Berlin offers the firsthand accounts of the pilots and the aircrew, ground crew, and escort fighters who accompanied the bombers on their perilous missions. Long stretches of quiet flight high above the fields of Europe were punctuated by moments of intense danger and adrenaline as German fighters pounced on the Allied aircrafts, flak slicing through hull and crew alike. Bomber crews also faced high-altitude induced cold temperatures, 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," just as you should think "I hope I get Mission to Berlin today!"