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(More customer reviews)Along with being the most famous bomber in history, the Boeing B-17 has been the subject of more books than probably all other bombers combined. Bill Yenne's 2006 B-17 tome for Zenith Press is one of the latest to pay tribute to Boeing's war winner.
After a brief chapter on the Flying Fort's development and introduction to service, Yenne devotes succeeding chapters to missions flown in 1941, 1942, 1943, etc. before concluding with a brief epilogue on the B-17 after World War II.
The book, part of the publisher's "At War" series, is very much the story of the machine and not the men who flew her. And therein lies my problem with it. Nowhere in Yenne's mission narratives are there any mention of specific units, specific crews, memorable events during the mission, etc. The book is basically 100+ pages of "On March 3rd 67 B-17s bombed Berlin and Dresden while another 59 hit Emden. The next day 118 B-17s hit Kiel..." and so on. Taking out the human element enables the author to condense the B-17's story to 100 or so pages but it also removes all the drama from the story. As a result, B-17 AT WAR is as dry as toast.
The book is illustrated with over 160 black & white and color photographs. About 1/2 have been previously published.
Check out the B-17 books done by Martin Bowman, Steve Birdsall or Roger Freeman for a more memorable look at the Flying Fort in action. Bomber completists may want to add Yenne's book to their collection but, sorry to say, I wouldn't rate it an essential purchase.
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The B-17 bomberwas America’s flying icon, from its inauspicious start (the prototype crashed a mere two months after its launch in 1935) to its starring role in World War II (serving first the RAF and then the U.S. Army Air Force, in every combat zone) to its eventual status as the grand old bomber without peer. Noted aviation author Bill Yenne takes readers through the hits and misses of the B-17’s development, the deployment of the different models, the missions flown, and the men who flew them.
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