An excellent study of the greatest aerial military disaster! Much has been written about the large aerial losses during certain World war II battles, especially during the Battle of Midway, the low level B-24 raid on Ploesti and the "Black Thursday," the attacks by the US Eighth Air Force against Schweinfurt and Regensburg, but the RAF Bomber Command raid against Nuremburg during the night of 30-31 March 1944 produced the highest number of aerial aircraft losses in a single mission; over 100 British heavy bombers. The author goes into great detail on the reasons for such high losses on what should have been a routine bombing mission, pointing out that the disaster was caused by a combination of poor weather forecasting, bad judgement in planning, and, mostly, the superior aerial defenses of the Luftwaffe night fighter forces, using improved tactics and weapons, including the capability to locate British aircraft by their own radar emmisions. Their other 'secret weapon' was a simple modification to the armament of the night fighters by which two cannons were mounted in the center of the aircraft at an angle which allowed the pilot to fly under the bombers in its blind spot and fire directly into its vulnerable fuel tanks and engines. Usually only a few rounds of 20mm cannon shells would send the plane down in flames. The RAF Bomber Command had been suffering high losses to German night fighters for sometime before this mission and earlier raids had losses of over 70 aircraft. Yet, the RAF did little to address the problem. The events of the Nuremburg raid were not, however, caused only by night fighters; the British planners miscalculated the weather believing that the formations would be protected by clouds. The cloud cover disappeared too soon, making the bombers much more visible. The author explains every aspect of the mission, including diversionary raids that did not divert, the complicated flight route which increased vulnerbility, and finally, the fact that, for all of its effort, very few of the RAF bombers were able to locate and bomb the target. Most of the bombs fell in open country, on small towns nearby, and some actually struck Schweinfurt, the subject of earlier USAAF attacks. Bomber losses continued not only over German held territory, but even as damaged aircraft, some will nearly empty fuel tanks and carrying dead or wounded crew, force landed in the English Channel and over Britain, some as they attempted to landed at airfields. But this is more that a cold battlefield analysis, Middlebrook interviewed a significant number of RAF and German participants and included many stories of bravery and professionalism. In the end, the Nuremburg mission, for all of it's losses was just another part of the continuing effort by RAF Bomber Command to destroy German industry and, hopefully, shorten the War. The book includes many maps and photographs, along with statistics. This book is an excellent example of military history written without bias. The actions of the crews involved tell the story best.
