Mission to Berlin ― The American Airmen Who Struck the Heart of Hitler's Reich

The western Allies flew 314 bombing missions to Berlin between 1940 and 1945. Germany’s capital was its largest city, the richest metropolitan center on the European continent, the sixth-largest city in the world—and it had been declared a legitimate military target. In Mission to Berlin, Robert F. Dorr—author of Hell Hawks! and Mission to Tokyo and one of today’s most prolific military historians—takes the reader on a World War II bombing mission from the airfields of England to Berlin and back. Told largely in the veterans’ own words, Mission to Berlin offers the firsthand accounts of the pilots and those of the other aircrew, ground crew, and escort fighters who accompanied the bombers on their perilous missions. Long stretches of quiet flight high above the fields of Europe were punctuated by moments of intense danger and adrenaline as German fighters pounced on the Allied aircraft, flak slicing through hull and crew alike. Bomber crews also faced high-altitude cold, lack of oxygen, fires, and explosions of their own ordnance, as well as crash landings or bailouts that could kill them or turn them into prisoners of war. As they fought their way across Europe, hoping to beat the odds and survive the maximum thirty-five combat missions, they often thought, “I hope we get Hitler today.”

Robert F. Dorr (1955–) is an author, U.S. Air Force veteran (Korea, 1957–1960), and retired senior American diplomat (1964–1989). He is the author of the weekly Back Talk column in the Air Force Times newspaper, the monthly Washington Watch feature in Aerospace America magazine, and numerous articles in major aviation and history magazines. He is both an analyst of present-day military events and a historian of past wars, having published about seventy-five books and ten thousand articles. Dorr speaks to groups about aviation and military history and is often interviewed on history programs. He lives in Oakton, Virginia, with his family—which includes his Labrador retriever—and has written Zenith Press titles Air Force One (2002), Hell Hawks! (2008), Mission to Berlin (2011), Mission to Tokyo (2012), and Fighting Hitler’s Jets (2013).