Download Mighty by Sacrifice: The Destruction of an American Bomber Squadron, August 29, 1944 AudioBook Free
On August 29, 1944, the 15th US Military Air Drive unleashed 500 bombers against olive oil and rail goals throughout central European countries. It dispatched the 20th Squadron of the Second Bombardment Group on what they thought to be an easy assignment: harm the Privoser Engine oil Refinery and associated railroad back yards at Moravska Ostrava, Czechoslovakia. This "milk run" deteriorated into the bloodiest day in the Second Bombardment Group's background: not a single one of the 20th Squadron's B-17 Traveling Fortress bombers returned from the objective. Forty airmen were killed, another 46 spent the rest of the warfare as POWs, in support of four, using the OSS and anti-German partisans, and sympathetic Czech civilians were able to evade catch. The 90 airmen on the objective to Moravska Ostrava give a remarkable personal home window into the Allies' Mixed Bomber Offensive at its elevation during WWII. Inside a microcosm, their experiences encapsulate how the US Military Air Makes built, trained, and employed one of the mightiest warfare machines ever seen. Their experiences also illustrate, however, the horrendous cost in lives demanded by that same machine.
