RAIDING THE REICH - The Allied Strategic Bombing Offensive in Europe by Freeman, Roger A

London 1997, Arms & Armour Press, UK First edition, hard bound in dust jacket, 8 1/2 x 11, 160 pp, 250 illus. ------------------------------------------------------ The Allied bombing campaign directed at Nazi Germany's war economy was a unique event in history and will forever remain so. It was the first time that military forces had been able to attempt such destruction from the skies and, with advancing technology, aviation has not required to use such numbers of bomber aircraft to achieve the same aims since.The strategic offensive was not a well photographed event. Official film of the aircraft, the personnel and the raids were limited to what could be undertaken in the frenzy of live war and during what were, on many occasions, night-time flights. Private use of cameras was much frowned upon but did exist and enabled subsequent generations to better appreciate how the bombing squadrons operated. This is the purpose of this pictorial account - to give a flavour of the drama of those days.Roger Freeman has scoured national and private collections to show the British and American air forces in action as the war was taken back to an expansionist Third Reich, to the core of its industrial heartland where its war effort was being steadily fuelled. Over 250 photographs take the reader into the air offensive which checked Germany's ambitions, reduced opposition to the Allied land actions against the German army and hastened the end to the 1939-1945 conflict.