Strikes: 323rd Bomb Group in World War II

Includes full page signed endorsement by Maj. Gen. John O Moench USAF (Ret); B-26 Historian and Author. See actual photos shot from the open bomb bays of U.S. bombers over Nazi targets. Author Lt. Colonel Ross E. Harlan participated in the epic struggle of World War II, and his book, Strikes, tells how the 323rd Bomb Group (B-26 Marauders) in which he served as Intelligence Officer and Executive Officer, played a crucial role in defeating Hitler's ambitions to conquer the world. Strikes includes many photographic illustrations, mostly from the author's extensive private collection including the only strike attack photos (showing bombs in the air over a target) still in existence for these missions. The book provides a detailed factual chronicle of the Group's training and missions through the end of the war. The chapters are organized by the Group's geographical locations, moving from training sessions at Tampa Bay, Florida, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, then across the Atlantic to England, to initial air missions in occupied France, and finally to the heart of darkness itself, Nazi Germany. Along the way, Harlan provides a wealth of information about specific missions, targets, ordnance dropped, losses, and results. The narrative moves inexorably toward D-Day, in which the 323rd played a very significant supporting role, and finally to the signing of the peace treaty in Rheims, France. A final section of the book, titled Scrapbook, includes articles, letters, and other items that contribute greatly to the overall picture of the 323rd Group's accomplishments. Particularly notable among these supplemental materials is a long and vivid letter by the late Colonel John Bull Stirling, a B-26 pilot from the 456th Bomb Squadron, who relates how during one strike against the German Army at Saint Malo, the sky was filled with brightly colored flak, which gave the appearance of coming slowly and lazily through the sky as though sprayed from a fire hose; Other documents also help flesh out the account of the Bomb Group, and one news clipping about some wandering cows even provides a little welcome comic relief. Strikes will be of great interest to military buffs and military historians. It also serves as a reminder of the heroic past and of the sacrifices the generation that came of age in the 1940s made to preserve civilization as we know it.