Description:
Bestselling author of The Arsenal of Democracy and The Accidental President, A. J. Baime returns with the incredible story of the airplane that ended World War II, the B-29 Superfortress, the rise of American airpower, and the man who made it all possible.
Of all the feats of American ingenuity in World War II, perhaps none was as impressive in scale or vital to the Allied victory as the creation of American airpower. Just a few years before the start of World War II, the American military was stuck in the dark ages of aviation, with the U.S. Army's Air Corps mainly focused, not on combat, but on mail delivery. Fast forward to end of the war, and America had launched the most impressive flying machine the world had ever seen: the B-29 Superfortress, a weapon so essential to ending the war that its research and development process cost more than the Manhattan Project.
Now A. J. Baime, one of our foremost chroniclers of twentieth-century history, returns with the story of this remarkable turnaround, detailing the creation of the Superfortress and how U.S. General Hap Arnold made the rise of American airpower a reality. Through the lens of Arnold's remarkable career--stretching from the dawn of aviation until the creation of the U.S. Air Force--Baime tells a sweeping story of American ingenuity, perseverance, and resilience, as the brightest minds from around the country came together to create the planes and the air strategy that carried the Allies to victory. From the crowded assembly lines of American factories to antiaircraft fire in the skies over Western Europe to the machinations of Roosevelt's Oval Office, Baime masterfully recreates the decisions, weapons, and victories that demonstrated to the world that whoever controlled the skies would win the war and control the future. Yet it was the Superfortress that brought it all together, culminating with the delivery of atomic bombs which could not have been carried by any other plane in the U.S. arsenal.
What emerges is a book that rightfully places the creation of World War II airpower in the pantheon of American technological achievements alongside the Manhattan Project and the Space Race. In the end, the Superfortress did more than win the war--it made America a superpower.
Brief description:
A.J. Baime is the New York Times bestselling author of The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World; The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War; Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans; and Dewey Defeats Truman: The 1948 Election and the Battle for America's Soul. A regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal for fifteen years, Baime has also written articles that have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and numerous other publications.
Review Quotes:
"Bird Men is propulsive history: the story of how Hap Arnold, the B-29 Superfortress, and a generation of flyers remade war from the sky. With his signature command of narrative and detail, A. J. Baime turns the rise of American airpower into a taut human drama of invention, nerve, and consequence." - Neal Bascomb, author of Hunting Eichmann and Winter Fortress
"As he did with Arsenal of Democracy and The Accidental President, A. J. Baime takes us deep inside the minds of people who not only make history but change our realization of what's possible. Baime accomplishes this with a novelist's pace and a historian's command. The prose and storytelling are steady and clear-eyed, with events and details accreting masterfully. He takes a story about machines and physics and metal and writes a panoramic human drama." - Doug Stanton, #1 New York Times best-selling author of In Harm's Way and Horse Soldiers
"Bird Men tells the astonishing story of one man's journey from flight student with Wilbur and Orville Wright to commanding the airborne armadas that destroyed Nazi Germany and dropped the atomic bombs on Japan during World War II. This is living, breathing, roaring history you won't be able to put down." - Adam Makos, New York Times bestselling author of A Higher Call
"The next time you board a plane and strap in, you need to have AJ Baime's Bird Men along for the trip. This remarkable book will make you appreciate the miracle of flight and the patriots in aviation who helped win World War II." - Doug Most, author of Launching Liberty and The Race Underground
"This sprawling work of non-fiction is a fascinating deep dive into American airpower during World War II." - Forbes
"Baime's lively narrative contains riveting aerial combat scenes, but it treats military procurement as the decisive battle of the war and does full justice to its high drama and the colorful personalities who drove it." - Publisher's Weekly
"Baime captures the spirit of aviation pioneers and the wonders and frustrations of technological triumphs in airplane manufacturing and performance that sent the bird men soaring. . . . Bird Men is an expertly researched, focused, and captivating study of the air war over Europe and the Pacific." - Booklist