In February 1942, a reconnaissance party of United States Army Air Force officers arrived in England. Firmly wedded to the doctrine of daylight precision bombing, they believed they could help turn the tide of the war in Europe. In the months that followed, they formed the Eighth Air Force – an organization that grew at an astonishing rate. To accommodate it, almost seventy airfields were hastily built across the eastern counties of England.

At the heart of the Eighth Air Force was its bombardment groups, each equipped with scores of heavily armed, four-engine bombers. These Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses and Consolidated B-24 Liberators were soon punching through the enemy's defenses to bomb targets vital to its war effort. They were crewed by thousands of young American airmen, most of whom were volunteers.

This book tells the story of just one "Bomb Group" – the 381st, which crossed the Atlantic in May 1943. Arriving at RAF Ridgewell on the Essex-Suffolk border, its airmen quickly found themselves thrown into the hazardous and attritional air battle raging in the skies over Europe. The 381st’s path led from its formation in the Texan desert, to its 297th and final bombing mission deep into the heart of Hitler’s Third Reich. This is the remarkable story of one group and the part it played in the strategic bombing campaign of "The Mighty Eighth."

Introduction

1. Swift
2. Bolero
3. Black Ribbons and Oil
4. Forward Together
5. Operation A
6. A Sham
7. The Jinxed Ship
8. Beating the Life
9. Scrub the Sky
10. Snow and Skis
11. Total War
12. Ridgewell's Revenge
13. Trafalgar
14. Big B
15. Work Hard for Doolittle
16. The European Theatre's Stage Door
17. Secrets and Lies
18. Triumphant We Fly
19. Tails and Fins
20. Buzz Bomb Alley
21. Allies and Enemies
22. Leading the Way
23. A Last Farewell
24. Some Sunny Day
25. The Lie of the Land