Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany

by Donald L. Miller

Allied planes dropped a total of 71,000 tons of bombs on the French railway system, the equivalent of seven times the explosive power of the uranium bomb that would turn Hiroshima into nothing. Postwar studies of pre-invasion bombing suggest that the bridge-busting campaign by the low-flying fighter-bombers was more successful in impeding German troop movements than the destruction of French rail centers by the heavies. Using tens of thousands of slave laborers, the Germans repaired marshaling yards and tracks as fast as Allied strategic bombers destroyed them. And these high-altitude attacks on yards located in heavily populated urban areas killed an estimated 12,000 French and Belgian civilians. Tactical raids on bridges and moving locomotives, on the other hand, caused minimal collateral damage and had a more serious impact on the enemy’s ability to move its armies. The Wehrmacht would fight a brilliant defensive battle in Normandy, but its fate was almost preordained when Allied airpower won the Battle of the Buildup before the invasion began.