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Hit the Target: Eight Men who Led The Eighth Air Force to Victory over the Luftwaffe
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About Hit The Target: Eight Men Who Led The Eighth Air
Product Description Selected for the Chief of Staff of the Air Force Reading ListFrom Bill Yenne, author of the military histories Big Week and Aces High, comes the stirring true story of the Eighth Air Force in World War II. Less than a month after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Army formed its first air force designated to operate overseas, the Eighth. Within four months, they had set up base in England. Three months later, they were bombing German targets in occupied Europe. The Eighth was the first bomber command on either side to commit to strategic daylight bombing. It was a major change in tactics—and the men of the Eighth paid the price in both lives and blood. But it was that very sacrifice that led the Allies to victory. Hit the Target introduces readers to those who made the Eighth Air Force the formidable juggernaut it soon became. Men of all ranks, from General Tooey Spaatz, the hard-driving founding commander, to Colonel Jimmy Doolittle, the hero who led the first air raid on Japan, to Maynard “Snuffy” Smith, the irascible first airman in Europe to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, and Robert “Rosie” Rosenthal, who survived his time with the “Bloody Hundredth,” which lost airmen at a horrifying rate, and who went on to serve as a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials. The story of the Mighty Eighth is told through these men, whose careers paralleled the early history of aviation and who helped to revolutionize airborne warfare and win World War II. INCLUDES PHOTOS Review Praise for Big Week“The author provides a day-by-day account of what took place as German industrial facilities were targeted for attack. Yenne skillfully situates the action, pulling together various threads.…Well-written and fast-paced, this will be compelling to specialists and general readers alike.”—Kirkus ReviewsPraise for Aces High“This is the greatest flying story of all time.…If there was ever an aviation tale that had all the elements of an old school Hollywood blockbuster, Bill Yenne’s Aces High is it. Wake up, Spielberg. This is the screenplay you’ve been looking for.”—Dan Roam, Author of The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas About the Author Bill Yenne is the author of more than three dozen nonfiction books, especially on aviation and military history, including Big Week and Aces High. He lives and works in San Francisco, California. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. EIGHT OF THE EIGHTH NOTE ON ORGANIZATION The Eighth Air Force was one of 16 numbered air forces that comprised the US Army Air Forces (USAAF) during World War II. Numbered air forces were composed of “commands,” defined by function and typically designated with a Roman numeral that was the same number as that of the air force. The Eighth was composed of the VIII Bomber Command and the VIII Fighter Command—long-range heavy bombers and the fighters to escort them—as well as the VIII Air Force Base Command to manage its base infrastructure. The VIII Air Support Command was added to operate medium bombers in a tactical role, but was later peeled off to form the nucleus of the Ninth Air Force. Within the USAAF table of organization, the “group” was the basic building block, and was contained within the commands. Groups initially contained three squadrons, although larger organizations, such as the Eighth Air Force, later added a fourth squadron to many groups. As the numbers of groups increased in 1943–1944, “wings” were activated to contain multiple groups, and “divisions” were later activated to contain multiple wings. Both wings and divisions were technically contained within commands, although, beginning in 1944, those within the Eighth Air Force answered directly to the Eighth Air Force headquarters. INTRODUCTION The Eighth Air Force is not the subject of this book but the stage upon which the climactic act of eight stories takes place. It was the wartime home of these eight indiv
