The Wonderful Story Of Bombardier

Download The Wonderful Story Of Bombardier full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online The Wonderful Story Of Bombardier ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!

The Girl and the Bombardier

Author : Susan Tate Ankeny
Publisher : Diversion Books
ISBN 13 : 1635767148
Total Pages : 238 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (357 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Girl and the Bombardier by : Susan Tate Ankeny

Download or read book The Girl and the Bombardier written by Susan Tate Ankeny and published by Diversion Books. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This enthralling WWII biography combines a downed B-17 bombardier’s unfinished memoir with letters from the French girl who saved his life. Susan Tate Ankeny’s father was a World War II veteran bombardier who had bailed from a burning B-17 over Nazi-occupied France in 1944. After he died, she found his unfinished memoir, stacks of envelopes, black-and-white photographs, mission reports, dog tags, and the fake identity cards he used in his escape. Ankeny spent more than a decade tracking down letter writers, their loved ones, and anyone who had played a role in her father's story, culminating in a trip to France where she retraced his path with the same people who had guided him more than sixty years ago. While piecing together her father’s wartime experience, Ankeny discovered a remarkable hero. Godelieve Van Laere was just a teenaged girl when she saved the fallen Lieutenant Dean Tate, risking her life and forging a friendship that would last into a new century. The result is a fascinating and dramatic World War II tale enhanced by personal interviews with participants. It traces the transformation of a small-town American boy into a bombardier, the thrill and chaos of aerial warfare, and the horror of bailing from a flaming aircraft over enemy territory. It distinguishes the actions of a little-known French resistance network for Allied airmen known as Shelburne. And it shines a light on the courage and cunning of a young woman who risked her life to save another.

Into the Land of Darkness

Author : Arthur L. Haarmeyer
Publisher : Arthur Haarmeyer
ISBN 13 : 9780988674912
Total Pages : 326 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (749 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Into the Land of Darkness by : Arthur L. Haarmeyer

Download or read book Into the Land of Darkness written by Arthur L. Haarmeyer and published by Arthur Haarmeyer. This book was released on 2013 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a wintry morning in 1952, young Lt. Arthur L. Haarmeyer reported for duty in Korea as a B-26 bombardier-navigator to Colonel Delwin Bentley, Commander, 95th Bomb Squadron, 17th Bomb Group, K-9 Air Force Base, Pusan. Haarmeyer was immediately challenged by the colonel: "You've got an MBA from a high-priced university. You could be riding a desk at the Pentagon right now. So why the hell are you here?" His reply--"I always wanted to be here, sir. I can be an accountant later"--was apparently convincing. But over the next seven months, flying fifty missions, mostly low-level nighttime bombing and strafing raids over mountainous North Korea, there were times when he had reason to question the sanity of both his response and his decision. In this book Haarmeyer recalls with clarity and economy of style just what it was like to fly these missions. He puts the reader in the B-26, flying into deep valleys to find and attack communist freight trains and truck convoys carrying men and materiel to the front lines, and then being unexpectedly caught in the sudden and blinding glare of enemy searchlights that triggered multiple streams of deadly and upward-arcing green or white tracers. And he recalls instances of agony, guilt, and terror: such as the times when the flak was so heavy on all sides that he was unable to advise his pilot to "break right" or "break left"-so their B-26 just simply plowed straight through it, or when they flew low enough for Haarmeyer to see, through the Plexiglas of the nose compartment, the terrified faces of the young North Korean soldiers they were targeting. He also recalls moments of breathtaking beauty and poignancy, and it is this artful juxtaposition that makes Haarmeyer's work more than just another wartime memoir. Although Haarmeyer left the Air Force upon completion of his three-year contract of military service, the recurring and troubling memories of Korea never left him. Hence, the start of this manuscript fifty years after the restoration of freedom to the people of the Republic of Korea. Just as telling these stories was therapeutic for the author, so reading them will be healing for any reader who is a veteran of that or any war, as well as their family members and friends. The book also provides a valuable perspective on the United Nations Command's tactical approach to Korea, namely, the aerial interdiction of North Korean troops and materiel, and so it will be of interest to students of the war, as well as military personnel and historians.

Pass with Care

Author : Cooper Lee Bombardier
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781948340212
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (42 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Pass with Care by : Cooper Lee Bombardier

Download or read book Pass with Care written by Cooper Lee Bombardier and published by . This book was released on 2020-05-12 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A funny, lyrical, and piercingly insightful essay collection about gender and sexuality, by trans writer and artist Cooper Lee Bombardier.

What We Do

Author : Michele Bombardier (C.)
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781947465992
Total Pages : 86 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (659 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis What We Do by : Michele Bombardier (C.)

Download or read book What We Do written by Michele Bombardier (C.) and published by . This book was released on 2018-07-27 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this deeply felt first collection, Michele Bombardier considers faith, illness, death, and above all, human connection. With humor and compassion she shows us her own family, but also patients, students, strangers. What We Do is a call to empathy, an invitation to listen for what lies underneath. The people inhabiting these poems come to life through such rich, loving detail they all sound like family. Ellen Bass At its center, What We Do is about survival, how quickly things can fall apart, and what it means to live in the aftermath of loss. Resilient and brave, the sonnet cycle in this collection does what poetry is meant to do, shake us into awareness of ourselves and of those around us, whether family or stranger, the rhythms and forms working against grief and pain. Dorianne Laux These are the poems of a fully inhabited life, portrait poems, family poems, poems of sorrow, joy and healing. I admire their attention to detail and their clear honest language. Joseph Millar Michele Bombardier's debut poetry collection, What We Do negotiates the landscape between the critical questions of love, loss, survival, and those revelatory answers found in the dimly lit situations on that road. The work is powerful, has beauty, music, and a tender honesty. There is trust in the details, nothing hidden, everything earned. This is a book of contemplations on what it means to walk in a world of risk, where even the smallest parts reveal so much on what keeps us going forward. In poem after poem here, there are bodies and souls, no judgments and plenty of truth. Gary Copeland Lilley

Bud's Jacket

Author : Barbara Wojcik
Publisher : 4 Square Books
ISBN 13 : 9781617662881
Total Pages : 168 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (628 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Bud's Jacket by : Barbara Wojcik

Download or read book Bud's Jacket written by Barbara Wojcik and published by 4 Square Books. This book was released on 2020-11-20 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The 14-year-old casually reached for the book Treblinka, by Jean-Francois Steiner in the History stacks at the Hinsdale, Ill., public library. She paged through, glancing at the table of contents and random pages and was horrified by what she read. Why had no one told her about the German death camps? Why did she know so little about World War II? Decades later, we open Barbara Wojcik's own book, Bud's Jacket, to the inspiring story of James "Uncle Bud" Wilschke. Shot down over coastal France in 1943, the American bombardier and his fellow airman, Robert Neil, find themselves on a desperate trek through Nazi-occupied Europe, hoping to survive and return to their UK squadron base. Including extensive research and visits to the original sites, Bud's Jacket is a tale of adventure, courage and determination. On a broader level, Wojcik pays tribute to the citizen "helpers" at all levels of French society who risked life, liberty and property to harbor Allied evaders from what good people then and now consider the forces of evil." -Dave Engel, Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., City Historian, Publisher River City Memoirs: Home Front Author Just Like Bob Zimmerman's Blues: Dylan In Minnesota

The Bombardier Story

Author : Larry MacDonald
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1118482948
Total Pages : 341 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (184 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Bombardier Story by : Larry MacDonald

Download or read book The Bombardier Story written by Larry MacDonald and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-12-24 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the company that was founded by the inventor of the snowmobile In 1942, Joseph-Armand Bombardier invented the snowmobile and founded his company to manufacture them. From its humble beginnings as an entrepreneurial company in rural Quebec, led by an enterprising inventor, Bombardier Inc. has emerged as a global leader in the transportation industry. This book tells the fascinating tale of this remarkably well managed company that has enjoyed spectacular growth in its chosen markets through strong leadership and management strategy, succession planning, strategic diversification, and turnaround and acquisition artistry. The fascinating story of the world's largest rail manufacturer for both railway and subway Reveals why Bombardier Inc. is a multi-faceted global company yet nobody knows their name Written by Larry MacDonald the author of Nortel Network The Bombardier Story shows how invention and entrepreneurship, management and leadership, smooth succession planning, and turnaround and acquisition built this global powerhouse.

Last of the Sandwalkers

Author : Jay Hosler
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 162672024X
Total Pages : 324 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (267 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Last of the Sandwalkers by : Jay Hosler

Download or read book Last of the Sandwalkers written by Jay Hosler and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2015-04-07 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When field scientist Lucy defies the law of her safe but authoritarian home on an oasis by leading a team of researchers into the desert to learn about the greater world, what she finds will change everything, beginning with the knowledge that beetles are not the only living creatures.

Belle of the Brawl

Author : Fred S. Lull
Publisher : History Publishing Group
ISBN 13 : 9780752464688
Total Pages : 287 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (646 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Belle of the Brawl by : Fred S. Lull

Download or read book Belle of the Brawl written by Fred S. Lull and published by History Publishing Group. This book was released on 2011 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This wartime biography follows the life of a Second World War B-17 bombardier from the beginning of the war to its conclusion. Based on the 150 letters the airman, Fred Lull, wrote home to his mother, much of the horrors of what he experienced off the wing of his plane, aircraft destroyed, dismemberment by flak, go unshared. Fred did not want his mother to worry and could not tell her: 'I noticed some movement and a flash of light out of the corner of my right eye. The plane that had been flying right next to us had exploded and simply disappeared.'Using the bombardier's combat flight record, research data and interviews of former B-17 crew members, the story unfolds, breaking through the barrier of an unwillingness and inability to tell loved ones of the smell and taste of war.

Liberty Lady

Author : Pat DiGeorge
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780998257013
Total Pages : 514 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (57 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Liberty Lady by : Pat DiGeorge

Download or read book Liberty Lady written by Pat DiGeorge and published by . This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LIBERTY LADY is the true story of a WWII bomber and its crew forced to land in neutral Sweden during the Eighth Air Force's first large-scale daylight bombing raid on Berlin. 1st Lt. Herman Allen was interned and began working for his country's espionage agency, the OSS, with instructions to befriend a businessman suspected of selling secrets to the Germans. Soon Herman fell in love with a beautiful Swedish-American secretary working for the OSS, their courtship unfolding amid the glamour and intrigue of wartime Stockholm. As Swedish newspapers trumpeted one of the biggest spy scandals of the war, two of the main protagonists walked down the aisle in a storybook wedding presided over by the nephew of the King of Sweden.

Operation Jacknap

Author : Jack Teich
Publisher : Bombardier Books
ISBN 13 : 1642935247
Total Pages : 179 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (429 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Operation Jacknap by : Jack Teich

Download or read book Operation Jacknap written by Jack Teich and published by Bombardier Books. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times described what happened to New York businessman Jack Teich as a “front page horror.” Two hundred FBI agents and Nassau County police officers combined forces to form a dragnet, hunt for his kidnappers, and rescue him. Teich lay handcuffed and chained to the walls of a closet in the Bronx with a medical bandage wrapped around his head to cover his eyes. His captors demanded that his wife, Janet, drop a bag with $750,000 (the equivalent of four million dollars in today’s currency) in a locker at Penn Station, making the Jack Teich ransom one of the highest in U.S. history at the time. FBI and Nassau County police detectives spent over a year before finally uncovering the meticulously planned kidnapping ploy hatched by radical mastermind Richard Warren Williams. The FBI internally dubbed the Jack Teich kidnapping operation “Jacknap.” The real-life crime drama that followed proved stranger than fiction, involving a tense across-the-country manhunt, a trailer in California stuffed with tens of thousands of ransom dollars hidden inside, a contentious jury trial that dominated NYC headlines for months; a guilty verdict that was overturned twenty-one years later on a controversial technicality; a retrial stymied by a mysterious fire that incinerated court records; and a civil verdict ruling that the kidnapper pay Jack Teich back the ransom money, plus interest. Operation Jacknap tells the incredible true crime story that continues even now. Indeed, as of this writing, no one knows where the majority of the ransom money is located. Inside, Teich also details his offer of a reward to anyone helping track down the still missing money and kidnappers.

Wichita

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780981518206
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (182 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Wichita by :

Download or read book Wichita written by and published by . This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book commemorates Wichita's role as Air Capital of the World. It takes readers from the early birds and barnstormers to the pioneers and entrepreneurs who established dozens of aircraft and associated factories in the 1920s. The story continues with the founding of Cessna, Beechcraft and Stearman (which became Boeing Wichita, then Spirit AeroSystems) and the massive build-up during World War II. Robust post-war growth got another boost when Bill Lear came to town and launched the business jet revolution with his Learjet. Today Wichita remains at the center of global aviation design and manufacturing with Textron Aviation, Spirit AeroSystems, Bombardier Learjet, Airbus and many dozens of smaller aviation manufacturers, suppliers and support organizations.What made Wichita the Air Capital? Flat prairies resembled one enormous landing field. Southwesterly winds added extra thrust to get and stay aloft. Farming and small manufacturing provided a legion of imaginative, industrious problem-solvers. Local boosters latched onto and promoted anything that flew. The city's central location provided an ideal refueling stop for coast-to-coast airmail routes. And oil generated a class of savvy, starry-eyed entrepreneurs who both used aircraft and had money to invest. Wichita brought it all together. The people. The promise. The planes.On Sept. 2, 1911, Albin Longren became the first person to build and fly an airplane in Kansas. His pusher-type biplane lifted off from a hayfield with a four-gallon gas tank and "flight instruments" that consisted of a pocket watch and barometer. The first plane built in Wichita rolled out of production in 1917, when Clyde Cessna assembled his Comet. Wichita's first commercial aircraft, the Swallow, came from the E.M. Laird Airplane Co. in 1920. By 1928, Wichita was general aviation's manufacturing grand central, producing 120 airplanes a week - a quarter of all U.S. output. A Chamber of Commerce Air Capital logo contest celebrated the city's 16 aircraft manufacturers, six aircraft engine factories, 11 airports and dozen flying schools. Wichita produces more airplanes - almost 300,000 to date - and offers more skilled aviation workers than any other city. Aviation forms Wichita's heritage and future.

Flying from the Black Hole

Author : Robert O Harder
Publisher : Naval Institute Press
ISBN 13 : 1612513174
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (125 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Flying from the Black Hole by : Robert O Harder

Download or read book Flying from the Black Hole written by Robert O Harder and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2013-03-15 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Air Force navigators and bombardiers have long labored under the shadow of pilots—their contributions undervalued, misunderstood, or simply unknown to the general public. This was especially the case with the non-pilot officer aircrew in the Vietnam and Cold War-era B-52 Stratofortress. Of the six people who operated the bomber, three wore navigator wings—two of those men were also bombardiers, the other an electronic warfare officer. Without the navigator-bombardiers in particular, executing the nuclear war strike plan or flying Southeast Asian conventional bombing sorties would have been impossible. This book reveals who these men were and what they did down in the “Black Hole,” a story told by one of their own.

Bombardiers

Author : Po Bronson
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 9780749396671
Total Pages : 448 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (966 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Bombardiers by : Po Bronson

Download or read book Bombardiers written by Po Bronson and published by Vintage. This book was released on 1997-06-01 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE BOOK: They were the bombardiers, hunkered down behind their screens at Alantic Pacific, dealing bonds they hated to people they hated in jobs that took all their lives. Sid Geeder was King of Mortgages and Eggs Igino his lietenant. The air they breathed was rotten with the stench of high tech, information economy, pure capitalism and with the frenzy of grunts driven wild by impossible targets, unmeetable deadlines and overwhelming work loads, they wanted only out.

Unbroken

Author : Laura Hillenbrand
Publisher : Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN 13 : 0812974492
Total Pages : 530 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (129 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Unbroken by : Laura Hillenbrand

Download or read book Unbroken written by Laura Hillenbrand and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2014-07-29 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more. In boyhood, Louis Zamperini was an incorrigible delinquent. As a teenager, he channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics. But when World War II began, the athlete became an airman, embarking on a journey that led to a doomed flight on a May afternoon in 1943. When his Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean, against all odds, Zamperini survived, adrift on a foundering life raft. Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will. Appearing in paperback for the first time—with twenty arresting new photos and an extensive Q&A with the author—Unbroken is an unforgettable testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit, brought vividly to life by Seabiscuit author Laura Hillenbrand. Hailed as the top nonfiction book of the year by Time magazine • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography and the Indies Choice Adult Nonfiction Book of the Year award “Extraordinarily moving . . . a powerfully drawn survival epic.”—The Wall Street Journal “[A] one-in-a-billion story . . . designed to wrench from self-respecting critics all the blurby adjectives we normally try to avoid: It is amazing, unforgettable, gripping, harrowing, chilling, and inspiring.”—New York “Staggering . . . mesmerizing . . . Hillenbrand’s writing is so ferociously cinematic, the events she describes so incredible, you don’t dare take your eyes off the page.”—People “A meticulous, soaring and beautifully written account of an extraordinary life.”—The Washington Post “Ambitious and powerful . . . a startling narrative and an inspirational book.”—The New York Times Book Review “Magnificent . . . incredible . . . [Hillenbrand] has crafted another masterful blend of sports, history and overcoming terrific odds; this is biography taken to the nth degree, a chronicle of a remarkable life lived through extraordinary times.”—The Dallas Morning News “An astonishing testament to the superhuman power of tenacity.”—Entertainment Weekly “A tale of triumph and redemption . . . astonishingly detailed.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “[A] masterfully told true story . . . nothing less than a marvel.”—Washingtonian “[Hillenbrand tells this] story with cool elegance but at a thrilling sprinter’s pace.”—Time “Hillenbrand [is] one of our best writers of narrative history. You don’t have to be a sports fan or a war-history buff to devour this book—you just have to love great storytelling.”—Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian)

Author : Hazel Jane Plante
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780994047199
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (471 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) by : Hazel Jane Plante

Download or read book Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) written by Hazel Jane Plante and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fiction. LGBTQIA Studies. The playful and poignant novel LITTLE BLUE ENCYCLOPEDIA (FOR VIVIAN) sifts through a queer trans woman's unrequited love for her straight trans friend who died. A queer love letter steeped in desire, grief, and delight, the story is interspersed with encyclopedia entries about a fictional TV show set on an isolated island. The experimental form functions at once as a manual for how pop culture can help soothe and mend us and as an exploration of oft-overlooked sources of pleasure, including karaoke, birding, and butt toys. Ultimately, LITTLE BLUE ENCYCLOPEDIA (FOR VIVIAN) reveals with glorious detail and emotional nuance the woman the narrator loved, why she loved her, and the depths of what she has lost.

We Fought to Win

Author : Kayleen Reusser
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781732517202
Total Pages : 124 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (172 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis We Fought to Win by : Kayleen Reusser

Download or read book We Fought to Win written by Kayleen Reusser and published by . This book was released on 2018-07-17 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kayleen Reusser has interviewed more than 250 World War II Veterans. In her first compilation of published stories, she has gathered 28 accounts of experiences with D-Day, Battle of the Bulge, Battle of Remagen, Okinawa, Iwo Jima and more. Written for non-military readers, these stories explain in the words of our nation's oldest veterans the sacrifices they made for their country. We Fought to Win: American WWII Veterans Share Their Stories include men and women who served from 1941-1945 in the Army, Navy, Army Air Corps, WASP, Marines. This compilation is part of an effort the author is making to preserve a significant part of our national heritage. She has written two other books about veterans in the WWII Legacies series: They Did It for Honor: Stories of American WWII Veterans (Book 2); and We Gave Our Best: American World War II Veterans Tell Their Stories (Book 3).

The Bomber Mafia

Author : Malcolm Gladwell
Publisher : Hachette UK
ISBN 13 : 0316296937
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (162 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Bomber Mafia by : Malcolm Gladwell

Download or read book The Bomber Mafia written by Malcolm Gladwell and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2021-04-27 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “truly compelling” (Good Morning America) New York Times bestseller that explores how technology and best intentions collide in the heat of war—from the creator and host of the podcast Revisionist History. In The Bomber Mafia, Malcolm Gladwell weaves together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard to examine one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history. Most military thinkers in the years leading up to World War II saw the airplane as an afterthought. But a small band of idealistic strategists, the “Bomber Mafia,” asked: What if precision bombing could cripple the enemy and make war far less lethal? In contrast, the bombing of Tokyo on the deadliest night of the war was the brainchild of General Curtis LeMay, whose brutal pragmatism and scorched-earth tactics in Japan cost thousands of civilian lives, but may have spared even more by averting a planned US invasion. In The Bomber Mafia, Gladwell asks, “Was it worth it?” Things might have gone differently had LeMay’s predecessor, General Haywood Hansell, remained in charge. Hansell believed in precision bombing, but when he and Curtis LeMay squared off for a leadership handover in the jungles of Guam, LeMay emerged victorious, leading to the darkest night of World War II. The Bomber Mafia is a riveting tale of persistence, innovation, and the incalculable wages of war.