The 44th Bomb Group, which flew the B-24 Liberator, was the pioneer unit for what evolved from the Mighty Eighths 2nd Bomb Wing into a full-scale Bomb (and later Air) Division. The Group amassed an impressive 343 missions and won two Distinguished Unit Citations between November 1942 and April 1945, dropping nearly 19,000 tons of ordnance in the process including the legendary August 1943 Ploesti mission. These statistics were achieved at a material cost of around 200 aircraft, and a human cost of some 2,000 airmen MIA, as the 8th USAAF focused its strategic bombing campaign in the face of determined Luftwaffe opposition.
Название: The 44th Bomb Group in World War II: The "Flying Eight-Balls" Over Europe in the B-24
Автор: Ron MacKay, Steve Adams
Издательство: Schiffer Publishing
Год издания: 2003
ISBN: 0764318853
Страниц: 268 pages
Язык: английский
Формат: PDF в RAR
Размер: 153.6 МБ
