This is an amazing piece of research which is also an eminently readable book. Martin Caiden takes us through the disastrous raid on Schweinfurt by the U.S. 8th Air Force in late 1943, the so-called "Black Thursday" which saw 60 American bombers shot down over Germany -- around 20% of the attacking force. No dry history this, but an almost novel-esque work which layers history, tactics, strategy and a blow-by-blow account of the raid, while simultaneously taking the deepest possible dive into what it meant to fly a B-17 in combat -- the mechanical wonders, the physical effort, the psychological strain. I really cannot emphasize how swiftly this book moves or how frightfully well it conveys the horror and confusion of a bombing raid carried out under continous attack by flak guns, rockets, aerial mines, and hundreds upon hundreds of enemy fighters. There are many touching and some tragic, and even a few funny, stories about how pilots, bombardiers, navigators, and gunners coped, or failed to cope, with the horror.
Caiden takes a brief broad overview of the history of the air war over Europe, and America's participation in same. The British had tried, and failed, to carry out daylight bombing raids over Germany and resorted to heavy night attacks. America, establishing bases in Britain, took over the burden of daylight operations, flying gigantic formations of largely unescorted heavy bombers over Germany and Occupied Europe in the face of tremendous opposition. The Schweinfurt raids were meant to strike a fatal blow to the Third Reich's crucial ball-bearing industry and thus cripple the Nazi war machine. To achieve this goal, a force of about 300+ B-17s was mustered for the strike. This is their story.
The structure of the book is interesting. Caiden was a pilot and understood fliers and flying and machinery, and he wants the reader to understand what it means to move through the air in 30 tons of aircraft -- the work involved, the physics, the technical expertise and the cold courage. So he breaks down the chapters into the overall strategy, the tactics, the logistics, the everything involved in carrying out a 300-bomber raid over a hostile nation. Then we get the action. Caiden makes extensive use of firsthand accounts and official records to record the event from the POV of those involved. He makes us feel it, the successes and failures both, and tries to cover all aspects of the battle -- for example, one entire chapter is devoted to the improbable escape to Spain, through Germany and France, of one airman shot down during the attack; another takes the experiences of a single minute of heavy combat as experienced by a series of bomber crews. At the same time, he explains the tactics and strategy of the Luftwaffe, praising their courage, ingenuity and determination at every point. While Caiden is obviously partisan, using "we" and "our" when describing Americans and the Air Forces, he does not make the error of presenting the Germans as mere foils for American greatness. The Germans won this battle, and while they paid a steep price to do so, Caiden does not let us forget that Schweinfurt was a bloody mess that failed to achieve its objective despite shockingly accurate bombing. The scenes where American ground crews wait in vain for bombers that will never return, the times when accidents kill as many Americans as a lost battle, the pathetic image of the lone survivor of an entire squadron staring through tear-blurred eyes at row after row after row of empty bunks never again to be filled by their former occupants, will stick with you forever. Like many people, I always assumed the Air Forces had it easier than the infantry, that they fought a "clean war," but this assumption does not survive contact with BLACK THURSDAY. Aside from being in the first wave of an amphibious invasion against a hardened beach, I can't imagine anything as terrifying, and nothing more terrifying, than being stuck in the ball turret of a B-17 when 200 German fighters are attacking you from every direction, flak is pounding away all around you, one engine is on fire, and you know you've still got 3, 4, 5 more hours of this hell to go through before you can get home. If you get home.
If the book has a weakness, it is that Caiden uses German records only for the purposes of recording losses and measuring bomb damage. There are no interviews with Luftwaffe fighter pilots who flew against the raid, or the Luftwaffe commanders who directed the battle. He does not tap into official histories from "the other side of the hill" except to give us some statistics. By doing so he would have greatly improved an already amazing piece of history and research, and given us a broader and deeper, and also a more balanced, account of the battle. However, this may not have been his objective to begin with. As I said, Caiden is a partisan writer: he wrote this book to impress upon us the courage of the American airman and the tremendous struggles and sacrifices he had to make to win the daylight air war over Europe, not to tell both sides of the story. Still, I consider this a pity. I have read enough German accounts of what it was like to fly against the dreaded "boxes" of B-17s, each bristling with hundreds of .50 machine guns, to want to read more.
Having said that, I loved this book. It reads almost like a novel and it has none of the overly technical, burdensome discussions of metallurgy, aerdodynamics, and what-not that made what many consider his seminal work, THE FORK-TAILED DEVIL, impossible for me to read cover to cover. That book has terrific anecdotes and exhaustive research, but -- in my opinion -- it gets in its own way with all the nuts and bolts: BLACK THURSDAY does not make that mistake. It's one of the best WW2 histories I've ever read.
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Reviews with images
Pictured is Frank Wiswall, when he was decorated with the French Legion of Honor.
I thought I was an "expert" on the air war over Germany....but learned much more. One of my WWII veteran friends, now deceased, was a bombardier in the 8th AF, serving in B-17 E, F and G types. He also did some time in B-24 Liberators. Frank Wiswall loved the B-17 and disliked the Lib. He did 25 missions without a scratch! He retired a LTC after 38 years service, incl. reserves. Frank would watch "12 O'clock High" at least once a month for decades.
Top reviews from other countries
P D LANGHAM
A detailed and factual read about the colossal raid 115.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 14, 2024
Jonathan Bate
A great trip through history
Reviewed in Germany on September 6, 2018
Amazon Customer
A well written first hand account of the bravery, terror, and trials of B-17 crews flying over Europe
Reviewed in Australia on April 18, 2016John Zamick
Brings this history to life
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 17, 2019
