Fighting Hitler’s Jets
The subtitle of Dorr’s remarkable text is “The Extraordinary Story of the American Airmen Who Beat the Luftwaffe and Defeated Nazi Germany.” This pretty much says it all. Although the book is loosely organized around the types of planes flown by German and American forces, the heart of the history are the personal accounts of airmen on both sides, culled by the author from interviews and secondary sources. Dorr’s technical knowledge of the aircraft will satisfy readers whose focus is primarily in that area. What is unique to this book, though, is the human face Dorr gives to the war in the sky. We are introduced to individual men on both sides who share their dreams of flying, their fears, failures, and victories. Their descriptions of aerial battles could be the stuff of video games. The book includes 20 b&w photos, a bibliography, end notes, and two appendices: one on Aircraft and the other a list of USAAF victories over German jets. The book would be a worthwhile addition to the WWII scholar’s library and a highly readable history for the layperson.
