Hit the Target

Eight Men Who Led the Eighth Air Force to Victory over the Luftwaffe

By: Bill Yenne

Narrated by: Corey M. Snow

Less than a month after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the US Army formed its first air force designated to operate overseas, the Eighth. Within four months they had set up base in England. Three months later they were bombing German targets in occupied Europe.

The Eighth was the first bomber command on either side to commit to strategic daylight bombing. It was a major change in tactics - and the men of the Eighth paid the price in both lives and blood. But it was that very sacrifice that led the Allies to victory.

Hit the Target introduces listeners to those who made the Eighth Air Force the formidable juggernaut it soon became - men of all ranks, from General Tooey Spaatz, the hard-driving founding commander, to Colonel Jimmy Doolittle, the hero who led the first air raid on Japan, to Maynard "Snuffy" Smith, the irascible first airman in Europe to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, and Robert "Rosie" Rosenthal, who survived his time with the "Bloody Hundredth", which lost airmen at a horrifying rate, and who went on to serve as a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials.

The story of the Mighty Eighth is told through these men, whose careers paralleled the early history of aviation and who helped to revolutionize airborne warfare and win World War II.

©2015 Bill Yenne (P)2016 Recorded Books

Lots of history, kinda boring.

I learned a lot, but I’d say closer to a textbook than a compelling story writing. It jumps around a lot and it’s hard to keep track of everyone.

Alsome book

its addicting. I love this book. I never knew that much about flying in war time.

Absolutely outstanding quality read!

With any other narration this audio book could have likely failed in it's design. A truly wonderful story and definitely worth listing to the end.

Good history lesson

Great look at some of the men who turned the Army Air Core into the United States Air Force. Didn't know "Airman Snuffy" was based on an actual person.

Incredibly Stupid

Spaatz, Doolittle, and LeMay shaped the Eighth Air Force? Certainly. Bob Morgan, Rosie Rosenthal, and Snuffy Smith? Good God, what an absurd comparison. Idiotic.