"I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Bomber Command, it had me on the edge of my seat at times & I found it hard to put down."

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Allied Air Force Research Website

Draws attention in detail to the major raids on the Reich capital by RAF Bomber Command from the late summer of 1940 to September 1943.

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ARGrunners.com

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The Armourer

A thoroughly good read involving the Berlin Biltz, and one that certainly deserves recommendation.

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The History Fella

This book is almost exclusively personal accounts by Bomber Command aircrew of their experiences of the air assault on Berlin, broadly from September 1941 to September 1943, interspersed with accounts by German aircrew, flak gunners, and civilians. There are some technical details, but the emphasis is on the human drama: from memory, over half of Bomber aircrew did not survive the war, and Berlin was a well-defended target.

Some wartime diary accounts can be glib or ‘understated’ to make an impact, but the stories told here are measured, reflective and honest. It is an immensely sad story, on both sides: the sheer scale of destruction visited on the city, and the constant reference to aircraft lost and young men killed. Picture all the 20-yr-olds in your workplace, and imagine 50% of them dying in the next few years….

I am not very knowledgeable on air warfare, but this is without a doubt the finest and most moving set of personal accounts that I have ever read on this subject. Very highly recommended.

Miniature Wargames

I believed this book’s title indicated an account of life in Berlin during the allied bombing of Berlin in WWII. Having served in Berlin in the early 1960s I saw much of the bomb damage and the results which could then still be seen across the city, along with the growing man-made mountain of rubble to the south of the city and I was therefore curious to see how ‘those who were there’ coped under allied bombing . Instead, this book hardly touches on this aspect of the war but it is nevertheless a thoroughly research project into a major aspect of allied bombing of Berlin during WWII until September 1943.

Like the author’s earlier work on the same subject, The Battle of Berlin, this book is an excellent chronology of the bombing campaign and clearly details the units and airman involved with illuminating personal insights from pilots and civilians involved, and including experiences of the ‘other side’. Some 9,000 allied bombing sorties were carried out during this period with the British dropping some 45,000 tons of bombs on the city in support of American raids which dropped a further 23,000 tons. For Berliners, the most commonly heard question was ‘Will they come tonight’? By the war’s end some 1.7 million people, mainly women and children, a quarter of Berlin’s population, had fled Berlin, to avoid the incessant bombing – and then at the war’s end fleeing to the West to distance themselves from the approaching Russian army.

This book is both informative and gripping. I found it difficult to put down as each chapter draws you compellingly to the next.

Highly commended.

Dr Adrian Greaves - The Anglo-Zulu War Historical Society