Customer Reviews

Jane's Battles with the Luftwaffe: The Bomber Campaign Against Germany 1942-45

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The American air campaign against Germany has been chronicled in hundreds of books over the years. The Boiten and Bowman book is a fresh look at the Mighty 8th's air war with many new personal accounts from American and German aircrews topped off with 300+ photos, some in color. It's a very pleasing package and makes for fascinating reading. If you're an 8th Air Force enthusiast, buy this book. You won't be disappointed. Highly recommended!

I lucked upon this volume in a discount book store, and I am glad I did. While it does maintain a somewhat dry chronological overview of primarily 8th Air Force bombing missions from 1942-1945, more than half of the book consists of individual narratives from USAAF bomber & fighter crew, and Luftwaffe fighter pilots and flak crews. These I found to be, by and large, most interesting, and new to me, despite having read numerous works on this subject over the years. Many of the USAAF photos I have seen before, but few of those of the Luftwaffe.
The sacrifice of both sides is well described, both in the individual stories, and the dry statistics of bomber and fighter losses, and the attendant casualties. It was a massive effort by both sides, with the issue in doubt until well into 1944.
I strongly agree with an earlier reviewer that the print is definitely much too small, and hard on the eyes. Nevertheless, a worthy addition to anyone's library on the air war in Europe, 1942-1945.

The book contains hundreds of photographs from the air war over Europe (1942-45), many of them never before published, as well as a wealth of first hand accounts of the terrible sky battles. The main drawback of the book is that editors tried hard to put too much text in the pages, resulting in a very small letter font which really made me grow tired after reading a few pages each time.

As with the title of this review, only one word describes this volume and it is outstanding. This book provides a huge collection of rarely seen photographs of not only the Allies, but also the German pilots who confronted them. The pictures are captioned with great detail and the fates of the planes, crews, and pilots are told as well.

The narrative and the first person accounts are engaging and bring the events pictured to greater life for the reader. This is a book that I return to again and again despite years of owning it. I find something new that I missed nearly every time. The detail is rich and if you could only have one book regarding the Airwar over Germany, this would have to be it.

This book has an enormous amount of small details (i.e., exact airwings participating in specific battles, etc.). The problem is that there is so much of this detail that it bores and swamps the reader with respect to the greater picture. There should have been much more emphasis on strategic considerations and history at higher level. If you are a deep and serious history buff in this niche of history then this book would be a four star for you but, for aforementioned reasons, for the general history interested in overview of the subject the book would only rank one star.

Great book. Item was delivered on time and although a used book, it was in very good condition.