Deadly Sky: The American Combat Airman in World War II

Deadly Sky is a thematically organized oral history of (like the subtitle says) the American combat airman in World War 2. McManus draws from a vast repository of letters and memoirs to describe the men who fought, their living conditions, the dangers of their mission, and what they thought about the job. American combat airmen were compared to the rest of the military, physically and mentally on the high end of the bell-curve. Conditions at base were relatively good, and missions typically came every few days. For these “luxuries”, they paid in dangerous and terrifying missions, enduring the frozen stratosphere, flak, and fighters to accomplish their mission. During the worst periods, combat air units suffered 80%+ attrition over the course of six months.

This book is weighted more towards the bomber pilots of the 8th Airforce, and could use a little more context around some of McManus’s favorite sources, but it’s a masterful summary of the men in their own words.