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American Raiders: The Race to Capture the Luftwaffe’s Secrets

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In April 1945, Boeing was ready to build a prototype B-47, hoping to snag the contract for America's first turbojet bomber. A Boeing aerodynamicist, George Schairer, happened to be in Europe that month, helping the U.S. military understand German technology before the Japanese could deploy it in the Pacific. Germany had not yet surrendered, and everyone expected the Japanese to fight on for years.


When the Hermann Göring institute in Völkenrode was captured by U.S. troops, Schairer was able to quiz the staff about an unusual aspect of their latest aircraft: the wings were angled to the rear. Why was that? The Germans explained that sweep-back slowed the apparent airflow, enabling an airplane to gain an extra 50 or 75 mph before it ran into transonic turbulence. Schairer wrote home: hold everything!


Boeing redrew its B-47, not only creating the quintessential jet bomber of the 1950s, but also the basic design of its 707 transport and all the heavy metal that followed. Even the newest Boeing airliner--and the super-jumbo from Airbus too--owes a little something to that impromptu seminar at Völkenrode.


Wolfgang Samuel is uniquely qualified to write the story of how German technology came to the New World. The son of a Luftwaffe pilot, he immigrated in 1951 and became a colonel in the U.S. Air Force. Like many American and British writers, he has a tendency to glorify imports like the Messerschmitt 262 jet fighter. To be sure, Nazi Germany had the better engineers--fat lot of good they did it! A bludgeon, not a scalpel, was the war-winning technology in 1945. Indeed, it can be argued that Germany's fascination with far-out designs contributed to its defeat, frittering away resources that should have been devoted to more mundane weapons.


In any event, the war in the Pacific ended before either side could exploit the German technology. Far more important was the brains behind that technology: the U.S. imported hundreds of scientists, too. They became founding members of the American aerospace industry: Wernher von Braun, father of the ballistic missile; Hans von Ohain, builder of the world's first operational turbojet; and Alexander Lippisch, designer of tailless, swept-wing aircraft.


In 1945, as Mr. Samuel explains, Russia too was scouring Germany for knowledge to exploit. If those men had gone east instead of west, the Cold War would have been waged on terms much less favorable to the United States. -- Dan Ford

In this book Wolfgang Samuel assembles from official USAAF records and veterans' interviews the stories of the Luftwaffe disarmement and Operation Lusty,the hunt for German top secret technologies.At the end of World War 2 the USAAF bombers encountered the first German Me-262 jet fighters .This and other German secret weapons (V1 and V2 above all) sparked a race between USA and URSS for German scientists and armaments.Two USAAF colonels,Harold E. Watson and Donald L. Putt and a young pilot of Germen descent Lloyd Wenzel succeeded in this operation which laid the foundation for US civil and military aviation of the future.This study is the best written to date on this fascinating yet neglected topic-how the hunt was originally planned,modified and then executed.This book is exhaustively researched and extremely well written.Samuel has done an excellent job of bringing to light the key players and concepts that shaped Operation Lusty.Highly recommended.

American Raiders is completely enlightening and enjoyable. It is a marvel of research. Because of the drama and colorful characters in the book it would make a great movie and TV series. American Raiders could be a history textbook for both military and civilian courses. While it clearly details our common oversights and red tape, it also touches on similar problems among the German bureaucracy; preventable failures that would have altered the outcome of the war. American Raiders provides ample warning to be vigilant and visionary in exploiting the intelligence information that we acquire. Until peace becomes a permanent fixture we must endeavor to persevere in our deterrence to those who work so diligently at preventing it.

This book tells a story that few have heard of. I knew a bit of it only because I know one of the people involved.

The author does a very good job of telling the stories of the individuals who "exploited" not only the technology but the intellectual capital of Germany at the end of WWII. The personalization and level of detail are wonderful without ever becoming dull or superficial.

The book includes lots of rare pictures of the aircraft and principal characters. Overall, very well written.

My wife bought this book signed by the author at the DC Smithsonian Space & Aviation Museum.

This is an interesting topic that is arguable in importance: on one hand, the author assessed the military situation as potentially dire for the ETO air operations as there were no immediate counters to German jet powered aircraft / guided weapons, etc. but also it was stated that US was behind only 3-5 years.

The author appeared to have identified a small group of key participants in Operation Lusty and interviewed as many of the survivors as possible. During research, he appeared to have been struck by the dedication and persistency of a few mid-grade USAAF officers and how they clearly saw the risk and opportunity of the Luftwaffe's advanced weapons. The author stated he felt that these individuals should tell the story in their own words, and as such, the book substantially reflects the stories of these men, who were in their late 70's when interviewed (the survivors). In some sense, this is a sub-story of the "greatest generation" who are now dying off in increasingly large numbers. Many WWII survivors could only attend D-Day ceremonies with canes and in wheel chairs.

I agree with what most reviewers have said. As each survivor speaks in his own words, an overlapping nature develops because several men are telling the same story from their perspectives. Like a movie that uses "flashbacks" of several characters, themes are repeated when the characters are featured. This should be tolerated and not criticized.

The story extensively covers a period of only about 2 years -- after a critical group of German scientists arrives in the US around 1946, the story abruptly stops. A historian would have ventured large scale statements about their impact in the following decade when the sound barrier was broken, space exploration made possible by rocket technology and development of IRBM's and later ICBM's. It would have been interesting to read about "bragging rights" on those future developments and the impact of German scientists (vs. the gingoistic view that US scientists would have developed the same breakthroughs once they got started). Quite frankly, advancements on the Soviet side were pressing the US until the late 60's when US weapons were tested against Soviet weapons in Vietnam and Middle East that anyone knew whether there was a technology gap.)

I think only authors like Norman Friedman and Norman Polmar could take on such an assessment. The author of this book stayed to his competency and produced a readable book that adds to the reputation of the "greatest generation."

A classic example of "to the victor goes the spoils."

I read this book in just a few days and came away with a new feeling of respect for those men who helped bring America fully into the jet age.

I only wish that they had gone into more detail about the aircraft themselves instaed of reiterating the same stories multiple times, albeit from different points of view. You never really get a feel for what it was like to fly these aircraft.

American Raiders: The Race To Capture The Luftwaffe's Secrets is the true story of the bitter race to seize German military secrets in aviation, including the nuts and bolts behind buzz bombs, V-2s, and the first jet fighters, after the close of World War II. Two bold American Army Air Forces colonels set out to regain America's technological edge from the world-class scientists that were the Nazi's "intellectual capital", and so began a race to conquer the mysteries of air, space, sound and speed before the Soviet Union could. A captivating true account, exciting and highly accessible to lay readers, and a "must-have" for American military aviation history reference shelves.

I expected this to be a very good book, but it was not. The subject is certainly interesting, and this book tells a story but not in a very entertaining way. I found myself skimming sections thinking, "Same stuff as the last chapter". The book tells the story of a couple of Americans on a scavenger hunt for German technology at the end of WWII, but there is precious little else. If you want to know about the amazing German technological developments, or about the German scientists, pilots, and engineers, then you won't find it in this book.

If you expect this book to tell you in a casual and anecdotal way about the people involved in collecting enemy aircraft in Europe after World War Two; you have come to the right place.

If you expect this book to tell you about the aircraft, you have not come to the right place.