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A review by audreyknutson
Blood and Fears: How America's Bomber Boys of the 8th Air Force Saved World War II by Kevin Wilson
2.0
This was an awesome history of first persona accounts of the 8th Air Force in Britain during WWII. It derived content mostly from bomber crews but also included fighter pilots, maintenance men, admin staff, and even red cross workers. I haven’t read a book with this many first person accounts derived from interviews, letters, and diaries. So that was awesome. However, I had to give it 2 stars because it was written so poorly.
The book was written so poorly that it was hard for me to keep track of what was going on/pay attention. It had really awkward sentences riddled in passive voice, ex:
“The concerted and prolonged battle over Germany the US Army Air Force was to win over the next five days had been a long time in coming.”
Some sentences also were soooo long and scattered that I had to re-read them a few times to figure out wtf was going on. Ex:
The few veterans now coming to the end of tours which had begun in late summer remembered with horror the dreadful mauling the Groups had suffered in attempts to neutralize the Liftwaffe in the double-strike missions to Regensburg and Schweinfurt on 17 August, a running battle in the sun across the skies of Germany costing the USAAF sixty of the 370 aircraft it dispatched and which Lt. Col. Beirne Lay Jr, an observer from 8th Bomber Command headquarters, described as ‘a sight that surpassed fiction.’”
While the research was great, the writing and editing itself was horrendous. This book took me so much longer to get through than it should have just because I had to re-read a lot of portions/read them super slow. It’s such a shame.
The book was written so poorly that it was hard for me to keep track of what was going on/pay attention. It had really awkward sentences riddled in passive voice, ex:
“The concerted and prolonged battle over Germany the US Army Air Force was to win over the next five days had been a long time in coming.”
Some sentences also were soooo long and scattered that I had to re-read them a few times to figure out wtf was going on. Ex:
The few veterans now coming to the end of tours which had begun in late summer remembered with horror the dreadful mauling the Groups had suffered in attempts to neutralize the Liftwaffe in the double-strike missions to Regensburg and Schweinfurt on 17 August, a running battle in the sun across the skies of Germany costing the USAAF sixty of the 370 aircraft it dispatched and which Lt. Col. Beirne Lay Jr, an observer from 8th Bomber Command headquarters, described as ‘a sight that surpassed fiction.’”
While the research was great, the writing and editing itself was horrendous. This book took me so much longer to get through than it should have just because I had to re-read a lot of portions/read them super slow. It’s such a shame.