EricCWelch

Note that I wrote this review before the plagarism controversy. See my review of Wings Over Morning

Ambrose became a widely popular popularizer of World War II history and he has managed to churn out several in the past few years that focus on the common soldier experience. Joseph Heller, author of Catch-22 and himself a bombardier on B-24s, told Ambrose, " never had a bad officer." Ambrose was startled to hear this from the creator of Major Major Major, Colonel Cathcart, and General Dreedle, but Heller, when queried by Ambrose, simply replied they were all invention. How they became so good is part of Ambrose' story. The Army Air Corps grew from 26,000 men at the beginning of the war to 2, 400,000 by 1944. American airmen had 360 hours of flight training before entering combat compared with only 110 for the Germans. It was a hazardous business ( four planes went down during a formation flying exercise killing everyone on board, McGovern reported) as the B-24s were very difficult to fly, requiring considerable brute muscle power. Most of the men were still in their teens with only a few officers over twenty-two. Ambrose focuses on the career of George McGovern, a pilot in the 741st Bomb Squadron, based in Cerignola, Italy, who survived flying 35 missions, won several DFCs and was considered a terrific pilot by his crew. Coming from a South Dakota parsonage where airplanes were rarely seen let along flown in, McGovern had extraordinary depth perception that helped him to become such a competent pilot. The plane itself was noisy, unheated, and thin-skinned. By the time he reached Italy, German fighters were not much of a problem as the Germans were running out of fuel and P-51s, flown by the famous African-American Tuskegee squadrons, prevented German fighters from being much of a threat. Flak was another problem. Over the targets the sky would be virtually black except where the shells explosions caused red flashes. The bombers had no choice but to fly right into it, unable to shoot back, make adjustments, or react independently. On one mission, his plane returned with 160 holes, one destroyed engine, no hydraulics — consequently no flaps or brakes — and required every ounce of skill for McGovern to make a safe landing (they tied parachutes to the struts, threw them out the open waist gunner windows, and pulled the ripcords on McGovern' command to slow the plane down after touching the ground). McGovern was 22. The B-24 was manufactured by a consortium of companies that included Ford Motor and Douglas Aircraft. It was called the Liberator and was designed to drop high explosives on enemy positions well behind the front lines — and especially on Berlin. In fact, the B-24 carried a largely payload than the more well-known B-17. The Liberator earned a reputation as an difficuolt beast quite fairly, as Amborses' following description of conditions in the plane attests. "Steering the four-engined airplane was difficult and exhausting, as there was no power except the pilot's muscles. It had no windshield wipers, so the pilot had to stick his head out the side window to see during a rain...there was no heat, despite temperatures that at 20,000 feet and higher got as low as 40 or 50 degrees below zero...the seats were not padded, could not be reclined, and were cramped into so small a space that a man had almost no chance to stretch and none whatsoever to relax. Absolutely nothing was done to make it comfortable for the pilot, co-pilot, or the other eight men in the crew..."

Taking off was always an adventure as even a slight drop in one of the four engine' efficiency might cause a crash since the planes were always overloaded way beyond design capacity. The planes were dangerous places to be — only 50 percent of their crews survived to the war's end. The B-24 Liberator performed better than the B-17 Flying Fortress, but it was less ergonomic and more susceptible to battle damage. They operated out of improvised fields, usually without hangars and formal barracks, surrounded by a civilian population amid ruins and on the edge of starvation There were more B-24's built than any other US airplane and Ambrose says "it would be an exaggeration to say that the B-24 won the war for the Allies. But don't ask how they could have won the war without it."