The Wild Blue: A Book Review

When most people think of the American strategic bombing offensive against Germany during World War II, usually they see in their imagination the graceful lines of the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses of the Eighth Air Force. Hollywood epics such as Twelve O'Clock High, Command Decision and Memphis Belle reinforce our collective memory of the Flying Forts taking off from Britain on their perilous daylight raids over Hitler's Third Reich, risking life and limb and machine to destroy Germany's industrial capacity and help hasten the end of the war. 

While the B-17 did, indeed, contribute to the Allied victory in Europe, its dominant role as the U.S. Army Air Force's strategic bomber was a creation of public relations and the media's attention on the "sexy" Flying Fortress. The true workhorse of the daylight bombing campaign over Germany was the ungainly Consolidated B-24, aptly given the name Liberator. 

As the late Stephen E. Ambrose wrote in The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany 1944-45, the B-24 was built in greater numbers than the more well-known B-17 (over 18,300 in all) and served in every theater of World War II where American forces were engaged. It had fewer machine guns than the B-17 (10 to the 13 on the Flying Fort), was harder to fly but could carry more bombs and flew slightly faster than the Boeing plane. It was ungainly, with its twin rudder tail and high-mounted Davis Wing, but it did its job well and did much damage to the enemy war effort. 

But although much space is devoted to the plane and its effects on Hitler's Reich, Ambrose focuses on the pilots and crews that flew the Liberator on hair-raising daylight raids on German targets. His narrative is centered on the wartime career of George S. McGovern, a 22-year-old B-24 pilot who hailed from the state of South Dakota and would, almost 30 years later, run for the Presidency against Richard Nixon. Although Ambrose writes about other B-24 pilots and crewmen, McGovern's evolution from air cadet to bomber pilot flying from Italy over Nazi-held Europe is the heart of this well-written and mesmerizing book. 

The Wild Blue also sheds some light onto the almost forgotten Italian campaign and the efforts of the Fifteenth Air Force to mount daylight raids over German targets in Austria, Romania and southern Germany. The D-Day landings in Normandy, the stunning Battle for France and the seemingly unstoppable advance of the Allies in Northwest Europe grabbed most of the headlines after June of 1944, and the public relations focus on the Britain-based Eighth Air Force relegated the Italian campaign to almost a backwater status. It is fitting that Ambrose's last major work pays a long overdue tribute to the Fifteenth Air Force and the pilots and crews who flew across the wild blue skies to help liberate Europe from Nazi rule.