The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany 1944-45 by Stephen E. Ambrose

Description

The eagerly anticipated follow-up to last years New York Times no.1 bestseller NOTHING LIKE IT IN THE WORLD. Author Stephen Ambrose brings us the unforgettable story of the young men who flew the B-24's over wartime Germany. In THE WILD BLUE, Ambrose describes how the Air Force recruited, trained and then chose the few who would undertake the most demanding and dangerous jobs in the war. These are the boys turned pilots, bombardiers, navigators and gunners of the B24's, who suffered 50 percent casualities. With his extraordinary talent for bringing alive the action and tension of combat, Ambrose takes us along in the B24's as their crews fought to the death to reach their targets and destroy the German war machine. Twenty two year old George McGovern flew thirty five missions and won the Distinguished Flying Cross. THE WILD BLUE will be published, in America, simultaneously with the Dreamworks/HBO ten-part series, BAND OF BROTHERS, based on Ambrose's bestselling account of Easy Company on its journey from training camps in England to Hitler's headquarters.

Editorial Review

Long before he entered politics, when he was just in his early 20s, South Dakotan George McGovern flew 35 bomber missions over Nazi-occupied Europe, earning a Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery under fire. Stephen Ambrose, the industrious historian, focuses on McGovern and the young crew of his B-24 bomber, volunteers all, in this vivid study of the air war in Europe.

Manufactured by a consortium of companies that included Ford Motor and Douglas Aircraft, the B-24 bomber, dubbed the Liberator, was designed to drop high explosives on enemy positions well behind the front lines–and especially on the German capital, Berlin. Unheated, drafty, and only lightly armored, the planes were dangerous places to be, and indeed, only 50 percent of their crews survived to the war's end. Dangerous or not, they did their job, delivering thousand- pound bombs to targets deep within Germany and Austria.

In his fast-paced narrative, Ambrose follows many other flyers (including the Tuskegee Airmen, the African American pilots who gave the B-24s essential fighter support on some of their most dangerous missions) as they brave the long odds against them, facing moments of glory and terror alike. “It would be an exaggeration to say that the B-24 won the war for the Allies,” Ambrose writes. “But don't ask how they could have won the war without it.” –Gregory McNamee