Episode Details

Mission to Berlin: The American Airmen Who Struck The Heart Of Hitler’s Reich

This is a great and important book that gives the average reader a real sense in the heroism and danger of air combat in World War II. It is difficult to imagine today just how complex a mechanism that a 1,000-airplane bomber raid, involving 15,000 men, was. Nor can we envision just how furiously a bitter, dying Germany could defend against it.

Author Bob Dorr, whose wide-ranging interests make him the dean of military writers, provides a thrilling, if sometimes heart-chilling, story of the famous February 3, 1945, American daylight raid on Berlin. He uses a minute-by-minute account of the raid as the principal thrust of the book, detailing how the mission progressed from the pre-flight take-off to the 4;00 PM (British time) landing. Join host Bob Gould with author Bob Dorr and much more.