Cassell Military Classics: The Schweinfurt-Regensburg Mission: American Raids on 17 August 1943

Martin Middlebrook's work is typically well-researched and detailed. His narratives are not too shabby either. His attention to detail allows the thinking reader to meticulously reconstruct the battles. If you want to know about U.S. daylight bombing over Germany during World War II, there is no better place to start.

Another well researched and presented book from the Middlebrook stable. Statements are presented as usual from all 'combatants' right down to poor Hildegard cohorting with a Guest Worker and sentenced for "in ehrvergessener Weise". I felt that this time though compared to the his books relating to Bomber Commands raids on various targets in Western Europe, Mr Middlebrook did not achieve the same rapport with the members of the Mighty Eighth. This may have been due to limited access to stateside residents or just New World cultural differences. However, this did not interfer with the usual excellent attention to detail and delivery of factual information.One niggle was that the quality of the paperback from Cassel & Co's printers (Cox & Wyman) was not up to usual standards for binding. My copy (Y2K print run) very quickly spat out the photographic plates!Otherwise another excellent reference and graphic literary production to my bookshelf.Thanks Martin.

Another great Martin Middlebrook effort, this time focusing solely on the American deep penetration raids of 17 August 1943. These raids surprised the Germans - they were not expecting deep daylight raids into Bavaria by the USAF. However bad weather, some dumb decisions and bad luck hurt the bold American effort. The Regensburg raid led by COL Curtis Lemay did fairly well, inflicting 8-10 weeks damage on the Me-109 factories there, at the cost of 14 B-17s lost. However the Schweinfurt mission went from bad to worse, losing 24 B-17s before arriving at the target, and then missing the ball bearing factories. On the way out, the Americans got clobbered even worse. A total of 60 B-17s were shot down and 11 more were damaged beyond repair; aircrew losses were 102 killed, 381 captured and 20 interned. The Luftwaffe lost 47 fighters and MAJOR "Wutz" Galland, an experten. Middlebrook uses these raids to assert that the dream of unescorted daylight bombing was shattered by this and costly follow-up raids, and that the USAF should have considered switching to night area bombing. For once, I find Middlebrook all wet here. Forgetting the 71 lost B-17s (to Americans, material in war is expendable), the death of 102 American aircrew seem justified for reducing German fighter production for two months. The comparable British Hamburg raids lost 87 bombers over Hamburg, with 552 KIA and 65 POW, merely to slaughter 44,000 civilians. The American losses disrupted bomber units but the actual deaths of both American crewmen and German civilians were small and the industrial damage - while certainly not catastrophic - did more for the war effort than the RAF efforts. Furthermore, Middlebrook ignores the fact that fighting the daylight raids was very costly for the Luftwaffe; 47 fighters lost in one day on the western front was a big loss. The American raiders helped to wear the Luftwaffe down; in these raids the USAF shot down 1 fighter for every 1.3 bombers lost. Comparable British statistics for Hamburg are about 1 fighter shot down for every 8 bombers lost. Middlebrook tries to defend the British theology of nighttime aerial bombing as more cost effective than the costly American daylight bombing but this book only serves to reinforce the opposite conclusion. Yes, the raids failed to cripple German industry, but they did hurt and disrupt it. American raids were costly but they did hurt the enemy militarily without inflicting undue civilian suffering. British raids were also very costly, but they inflicted virtually no military damage and inflicted horrendous suffering. I think here that Middlebrook is reluctant to speak the underlying truth: the British conducted area bombing not from military necessity but to avenge bombed British cities and spread the misery. Carried through to today, we know that precision-bombing can work to achieve military goals while indiscriminate attacks on civilians are unlikely to be decisive in themselves.

This book is absolutely essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the American daylight offensive against strategic targets in Germany during WWII. Middlebrook's characteristic attention to detail, combined with copious 'first-hand' material makes this book fascinating and enthralling, whilst also bringing home the horror of the raid from all perspectives. Thoroughly recommended.

This is the kind of book that will probably be priceless to future historians for its outstanding detail and strict focus on facts. The author has succeeded in the collection of interviews from a large number - if not all - of the surviving eyewitnesses from the 17 august 1943 raids, both in the air and on the ground. Inside a text which in great detail discusses the merits and flaws of decisions taken during planning and execution of the raids, as well as being a narrative of the action minute by minute, many of these interviews are generously added and gives a first-hand insight to what it was really like.