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In February 1945, the Allies launched Operation Thunderclap, a series of maximum efforts against cities in eastern Germany. These deep-penetration raids would tax the bomber crews immensely, as well as bring new devastation to cities yet untouched by US airpower. Meanwhile, the Nazis attempted to move all their prisoners beyond the reach of the Soviet Army’s advancing spearheads, forcing thousands of Allied POWs on a five-hundred-mile, three-month trek that would come to be known as the Black March.
Two B-17 crew members, a copilot and gunner, trained together in Gulfport, MS, and, in Fall 1944, were assigned to the longest-serving and most decorated US bomb group in England. However, their paths then diverged. The copilot flew thirty-one missions until the war’s end; the gunner was shot down and captured on his very first combat mission. These crew members both lived—one through Thunderclap and one through the Black March—and this is their story: an account of both constant air combat and travail on the ground.
The copilot participated in the bombing of Dresden, where he witnessed a city already too far destroyed to expend additional bombs. The gunner survived the March, and once time was up for Germany, experienced a period in Soviet captivity. This unique book on the Allied air campaign offers new insights into what our fliers truly saw and experienced during the war.
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Richard (Dick) Allison is a retired Captain in the United States Naval Reserve Judge Advocate General’s Corps, having completed a twenty-six year military career in 1996. During his term of active duty (1968–1971) he served as line officer aboard the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid (CVS-11) and later on an admiral’s staff in an administrative capacity. It was during his shipboard years that he developed a keen interest in the subject of military aviation. As a civilian, Allison worked 35 years as a bank trust-lawyer both in estate and personal trust administration. A lifelong resident of Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, Allison served as president of the Rotary Club there and also as chairman of the non-profit Grosse Pointe War memorial Association. He is married and has a daughter. Retired from both careers now, his interests include skiing, hiking, woodworking, reading military history and writing.
