Target Berlin Mission 250: 6th March 1944

On 6 March 1944 the Americans launched their first large-scale raid on Berlin, the heart of Hitler's Reich. The price they paid was high: 69 heavy bombers and 11 escort fighters failed to return, the highest number in any raid mounted by the 8th Air Force.
This is a compellingly readable, skilfully researched, minute-by-minute account of that raid. It is also the first book on the subject based upon research conducted in detail from both sides. For Target Berlin, two leading aviation historians, Jeffrey Ethell in the USA and Alfred Price in Great Britain, pooled their many sources of material and contacts among ex-members of the US Army Air Force and the Luftwaffe.
The outcome of the authors' intensive research, detailing the part played in the action by almost every unit on each side, is packed with human interest and superbly documented and illustrated. Many of the photographs were taken during the action. In this record of courage, endurance, sacrifice and fear, the personal recollections of more than 160 American bomber and fighter crewmen, German fighter pilots, flak gunners and men and women living in Berlin give a vivid insight into the nature of the huge air battles fought over Germany during 1944. It was a conflict neither side could afford to lose.


Front cover illustration:
Fortresses Engaged Keith Ferris's brilliant reconstruction captures the scene 21,000 feet above Haseleunne near the Dutch-German border, at noon on 6 March 1944. B-17s of the 351st Squadron, 100th Bomb Group, are engaged by a large force of Messerschmitts and Focke Wulf, attacking from head-on at closing speeds of around 500 mph. The fighters depicted, Messerschmitt 109s of 111rd Gruppe of Fighter Geschwader 54, are part of the fourth wave' to engage.
Lieutenant Helmick's crew, in B-17 'M' in the foreground, would complete the mission and return safely to England. Those in the other two bombers were not so fortunate. Aircraft 'D', piloted by Lieutenant Brannan, has suffered fatal damage during an earlier attack: with both starboard engines ablaze, it is starting to go down. Eight crewmen would jump clear before the plane exploded in mid-air. Aircraft R, piloted by Lieutenant Merril Rish, is also in trouble and about to fall out of control in a steep dive. Seven of the crew would bail out before the bomber smashed into the ground. Both Messerschmitts took hits and their pilots suffered injuries, Feldwebel Friedrich Unger in V and Unteroffizier Erwin Mueller in W. Both fighters would make crash-landings.


by Jeffrey Ethell, & Alfred Price
Published by Arms and Armour Press 1989 (of Janes 1981 1st.) 212pp illustrated, index, appendix, bibliography, maps. 16x24 slightly yellowed, otherwise near fine, including d/j.





Note:
"Long" descriptions, where shown, may have been taken from the book's dust jacket notes, and as such are relevant to the date of publication (e.g. any references to "previously unpublished photographs" etc.) and not the present.

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