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The Savage Sky: Life and Death in a Bomber over Germany in 1944 (Stackpole Military History) |  | Author: George Webster
Publisher: Stackpole Books
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
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Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 383122
Media: Paperback
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 0.8
ISBN: 0811733882
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.544973092
EAN: 9780811733885
ASIN: 0811733882
Publication Date: March 10, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
"The Savage Sky" is as close as you can get to experiencing aerial combat while still staying firmly planted on the ground. This book gives the reader a first-hand look at war from inside a B-17 bomber in WWII. The writing is vivid and intimate, describing the bitter cold at altitude, gut-wrenching fear, lethal shrapnel from flak, and German fighters darting through the bomber formation like feeding sharks.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
 The Savage Sky: Life and Death in a bomber over Germany in 1944 January 20, 2008
ML
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
If you are interested in learning about the daily life of an Eight Air Force bomber crewman during the war this book is a must read. The author, who was a radio operator, goes into great detail explaining the missions and the stresses and fears that resulted from the uncertainty of whether he would survive them. He talks openly of the effects of stress on himself and others and how they coped whether it be with drugs issued by the flight surgeon, alcohol, or other means. He discusses life on base and during leave. The book also shows how many lives were both brought together and destroyed by the war and how fate makes it's mark. It truly depicts how common boys from all over America became heroes in the air trying to do their job for their country and live through it. It is not a documentary of facts, it is insight into what many bomber crewman went through psychologically. The story is well written and is worthy of becoming a movie.
What happened to Jane? May 21, 2009
jodie jd (Where Angels Live)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I can't add much to the other reviews except I too want to know what happened to Jane.
Webster's story is both honest and hard to believe. A kid, lost in a war, lost in London, and waiting to die while learning to love. Did they really fly to 30,000 feet with an open roof and wind blowing in at 170 mph in the radio compartment at 50 below and nothing to keep them warm but an electric still suit?
Each time they flew they had about a 6% chance of getting killed. That gave them about what, a 20% chance of surviving all 25 missions? In other words 4 out of 5 kids were going to get shot down, one way or the other, usually in a ball of fire. Until the limit got extended to 30.
George Webster manages to capture his own innocence and wonder and terror and traumatic stress and first love, even while looking back through a long life and successful professional post war career with wife and kids. I imagine his kids and grand-kids are more than grateful for his telling of this story.
Is it really true? Wow.
The Savage Sky, review December 23, 2009
G. D. White (Sydney, Australia)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
There are many books on this subject, but they often become overloaded with dry statistics and remote strategic reasonings.
This author flew the missions and lived the terror, seeing his training camp comrades killed one by one, even 10 at a time. Death does not refrain from visiting his crew either, as his tail gunner dies in a hail of shot.
The author describes how he and others become dependent on drugs and alcohol to keep going, of how the odds against survival are so high that the only way to cope with it is to reckon yourself as already dead.
Against all reasoning he finds romance in London, and he and his lover despairingly count down the remaining missions only to have the bar raised 20% by higher command.
He lives, but at a high price for himself and his comrades. It is a moving narrative, one which takes you right into the bomber's agonising ordeals.
Europe's savage sky was a nonstop horror show May 27, 2010
G. E. Brown
Webster,19-year old noncom radio operator
(by mistake, he should have been an officer)
provides the most detailed, compelling
account of 8th Air Force operations
I've read. The nightmare likelihood of
instant,violent death at any point in
any mission is so perfectly conveyed
that I felt like I was in the B-17
with him! Also "shocking" details like
Medical Corps prescribed barbituates
to sleep through PTSD nightmares, then
amphetamines so aircrews could function
on missions, is new information to me.
A superb, personal account by a hero--
a REAL hero!
The BRUTAL REALITY of AIR COMBAT in WWII October 3, 2009
John J. Topolosky (Neptune Beach, Fl)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book written by Dr George Webster, PhD (Biochemistry) about my father's Boeing B-17G bomber crew; one of the most depressing books I have ever read! ...83% casualty rate in my father's squadron during the time he was flying out of England in early-mid 1944 (with a 40% casualty rate on one combat mission alone). A chilling read. I now realise that I am REAL lucky just to be here! Clearly my dad (a bombardier) wasn't embellishing those combat mission (horror) stories he told me when I was a kid after all. Hauntingly for me, this book reads as if I was listening to my father recount each bloody mission. My father said that he was so scared before each mission that often he would upchuck his breakfast before climbing aboard the bomber. Highly recommended for those who can deal with such intense tragedy..
Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
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