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by Chester Fong (Author)
S.Sgt. Chester Fong was a tail gunner on a B-24 Liberator heavy bomber with the 735th Bomb Squadron, 453rd Bomb Group, 2nd Air Division of the US 8th Air Force in the European Theater of Operations. He describes his personal experiences on 22 combat missions over Germany from January to April 1945. Each mission played a vital role in the final bombing campaigns against Germany's oil industry and transportation networks, which totally destroyed Germany's ability to wage war. He describes in vivid detail how each of his missions played an essential role in the overall strategic bombing campaigns by both the US Eighth Air Force and RAF Bomber Command in the defeat of Germany.
On December 16, 1944, the German Wehrmacht launched a futile counteroffensive against US Army forces in the Ardennes region of Belgium. The complete defeat of the German forces by the heroic defense of American troops signaled the beginning of the end of Adolph Hitler's Third Reich. The Ardennes campaign would be the last major German offensive on the Western Front. In less than six months, the war in Europe would be over.
Chester Fong and his crewmates entered combat duty aboard a Consolidated B-24 Liberator in January 1945. The strategic Allied air forces had completed the destruction of Germany's oil and petroleum industry. Began in June 1944, the oil campaign was a complete success. Next on the agenda was the strategic air campaign against the major transportation and communications networks within Germany. By April 1945, the crippling effects of heavy bombing raids on this vital industrial system resulted in the rapid advance of Allied ground forces into the heart of Germany. Soon after, Berlin fell and the German armies surrendered.
Fong documents the events that took place during the last months of the war. He describes the critical role of the strategic Allied air forces in the support of the Anglo-American and Russian ground forces in their advance into the Rhineland. All the major battles on the ground during the end of the war are described in detail. From the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 to the Russian winter offensive in January 1945, Eisenhower's US 12th Army Group encirclement of the Ruhr Valley, and finally the Russian's Operation Berlin that resulted in the capture of the city and death of Adolf Hitler.
The air battles in the skies over Germany were no less vicious than on the ground. When the Luftwaffe unleashed its newest interceptor, the Messerschmitt 262 jet fighter, against the Allied heavy bombers in the spring of 1945, all hell broke loose. However, the resurgence of Luftwaffe's attacks proved to be too late to affect the outcome of the war. The success of the final transportation bombing campaign by the Allied air forces resulted in the total destruction of the German war machine, which ended the war in Europe in May 1945.
