Thunder in the Heavens: Classic American Aircraft of World War II

"If I were to give you one factor as the leading one that led to your victory, I would give you the air force." Japan's Admiral Nagano offered this opinion to his American interrogators in 1946; it was one held not by him alone, for in Germany two years earlier the famous Luftwaffe ace Gen. Adolf Galland had written of the United States' long-range escort fighters: "The standard of the Americans is extraordinarily high...things have gone so far that the danger of a collapse of our arm exists." Without doubt, air superiority was a crucial factor to the outcome of World War II. Skilled American pilots were able to achieve this thanks to the capabilities of such aircraft as the B-17, B-24 and B-29, of which nearly 35,000 were built; the medium bombers, such as the B-25 Mitchell; and the many types of fighter, including the P-51 Mustang and the F4F Wildcat--a host of variants which brought the overall American contribution to Allied air power to over 200,000. Of this massive total hardly any remain today; there is, for example, only one airworthy B-24 out of more than 18,000 built. Thunder in the Heavens features 14 preserved classic American combat aircraft. The "Big Friends", the heavy bombers that prosecuted the strategic and tactical campaigns in the European and Pacific theatres; the "Little Friends", the fighter escorts that provided protection and, when numbers permitted, sought out and destroyed the enemy defensive fighters; the medium bombers which, among other roles, gave tactical support "low and below" to the crucial land campaigns; and the carrier aircraft "flying from the flat tops" that totally decimated the Japanese. Accompanying the pictures throughout the words, memories and experiences of the air force combatants, helping to convey the reality of the air war and bringing these aircraft to life as surely as they once used the aircraft to secure victory.