Donald L. Miller

The riveting history of the American Eighth Air Force in World War Two, the story of the young men who flew the bombers that helped bring Nazi Germany to its knees, brilliantly told by historian Donald Miller and soon to be a major HBO series. Masters of the Air is the deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitler's doorstep. With the narrative power of fiction, Donald Miller takes you on a harrowing ride through the fire-filled skies over Berlin, Hanover, and Dresden and describes the terrible cost of bombing for the German people. Fighting at 25,000 feet in thin, freezing air that no warriors had ever encountered before, bomber crews battled new kinds of assaults on body and mind. Air combat was deadly but intermittent: periods of inactivity and anxiety were followed by short bursts of fire and fear. Unlike infantrymen, bomber boys slept on clean sheets, drank beer in local pubs, and danced to the swing music of Glenn Miller's Air Force band, which toured US air bases in England. But they had a much greater chance of dying than ground soldiers. The bomber crews were an elite group of warriors who were a microcosm of America--white America, anyway. The actor Jimmy Stewart was a bomber boy, and so was the "King of Hollywood," Clark Gable. And the air war was filmed by Oscar-winning director William Wyler and covered by reporters like Andy Rooney and Walter Cronkite, all of whom flew combat missions with the men. The Anglo-American bombing campaign against Nazi Germany was the longest military campaign of World War II, a war within a war. Until Allied soldiers crossed into Germany in the final months of the war, it was the only battle fought inside the German homeland. Masters of the Air is a story of life in wartime England and in the German prison camps, where tens of thousands of airmen spent part of the war. It ends with a vivid description of the grisly hunger marches captured airmen were forced to make near the end of the war through the country their bombs destroyed. Drawn from recent interviews, oral histories, and American, British, German, and other archives, Masters of the Air is an authoritative, deeply moving account of the world's first and only bomber war.

Winner of the Civil War Round Table of New Yorks Fletcher Pratt Literary Award, the Austin Civil War Round Tables Daniel M. & Marilyn W. Laney Book Prize, and the Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing AwardA superb account (The Wall Street Journal) of the longest and most decisive Civil War campaignthe Siege of Vicksburg in Vicksburg, Mississippiwhich opened the Mississippi River, split the Confederacy, freed tens of thousands of slaves, and made Ulysses S. Grant the most important general of the war.Vicksburg, Mississippi, was the last stronghold of the Confederacy on the Mississippi River. It prevented the Union from using the river for shipping between the Union-controlled Midwest and New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. The Union navy tried to take Vicksburg, which sat on a high bluff overlooking the river, but couldnt do it. It took Grants army and Admiral David Porters navy to successfully invade Mississippi and lay siege to Vicksburg, forcing the city to surrender.In this elegantenlighteningwell-researched and well-told (Publishers Weekly) work, Donald L. Miller tells the full story of this year-long Mississippi River campaign to win the city with probing intelligence and irresistible passion (Booklist). He brings to life all the drama, characters, and significance of Vicksburg, a historic moment that rivals any war story in history. In the course of the campaign, tens of thousands of slaves fled to the Union lines, where more than twenty thousand became soldiers, while others seized the plantations they had been forced to work on, destroying the economy of a large part of Mississippi and creating a social revolution. With Vicksburg Miller has produced a model work that ties together military and social history (Civil War Times).Vicksburg solidified Grants reputation as the Unions most capable general. Today no general would ever be permitted to fail as often as Grant did, but ultimately he succeeded in what he himself called the most important battle of the warthe one that all but sealed the fate of the Confederacy.

Although most people associate the term D-Day with the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944, it is military code for the beginning of any offensive operation. In the Pacific theater during World War II there were more than one hundred D-Days. The largestand lastwas the invasion of Okinawa on April 1, 1945, which brought together the biggest invasion fleet ever assembled, far larger than that engaged in the Normandy invasion.D-Days in the Pacific tells the epic story of the campaign waged by American forces to win back the Pacific islands from Japan. Based on eyewitness accounts by the combatants, it covers the entire Pacific struggle from the attack on Pearl Harbor to the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Pacific war was largely a seaborne offensive fought over immense distances. Many of the amphibious assaults on Japanese-held islands were among the most savagely fought battles in American history: Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, New Guinea, Peleliu, Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima, Okinawa.Generously illustrated with photographs and maps, D-Days in the Pacific is the finest one-volume account of this titanic struggle.

The inspiration for the major Apple TV+ series, streaming now!The riveting history of the American Eighth Air Force in World War II and the young men who flew the bombers that helped beat the Nazis and liberate Europe, brilliantly told by historian and World War II expert Donald L. Miller. The Masters of the Air streaming series stars Austin Butler and Callum Turner, and is produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, the legendary duo behind Band of Brothers and The Pacific.Masters of the Air is the deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitlers doorstep. With the narrative power of fiction, Donald Miller takes you on a harrowing ride through the fire-filled skies over Berlin, Hanover, and Dresden and describes the terrible cost of bombing for the German people. Masters of the Air is the deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitlers doorstep. With the narrative power of fiction, Donald Miller takes you on a harrowing ride through the fire-filled skies over Berlin, Hanover, and Dresden and describes the terrible cost of bombing for the German people. Fighting at 25,000 feet in thin, freezing air that no warriors had ever encountered before, bomber crews battled new kinds of assaults on body and mind. Air combat was deadly but intermittent: periods of inactivity and anxiety were followed by short bursts of fire and fear. Unlike infantrymen, bomber boys slept on clean sheets, drank beer in local pubs, and danced to the swing music of Glenn Millers Air Force band, which toured US air bases in England. But they had a much greater chance of dying than ground soldiers. The bomber crews were an elite group of warriors who were a microcosm of Americawhite America, anyway. The actor Jimmy Stewart was a bomber boy, and so was the King of Hollywood, Clark Gable. And the air war was filmed by Oscar-winning director William Wyler and covered by reporters like Andy Rooney and Walter Cronkite, all of whom flew combat missions with the men. The Anglo-American bombing campaign against Nazi Germany was the longest military campaign of World War II, a war within a war. Until Allied soldiers crossed into Germany in the final months of the war, it was the only battle fought inside the German homeland.Masters of the Air is a stunning achievement (David McCullough), a fresh new account (Walter Boyne, former director of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum) of life in wartime England and in the German prison camps, where tens of thousands of airmen spent part of the war. It ends with a vivid description of the grisly hunger marches captured airmen were forced to make near the end of the war through the country their bombs destroyed. Drawn from recent interviews, oral histories, and American, British, German, and other archives, Masters of the Air is an authoritative, deeply moving account that accurately and comprehensively (Lt. Gen. Bernard E. Trainor, USMC (Ret.) and coauthor of Cobra II) tells of the worlds first and only bomber war.

Supreme City captures a vanished Gotham in all its bustle, gristle, and glory (Vanity Fair). In the 1920s midtown Manhattan became the center of New York City, and the cultural and commercial capital of America. This is the story of the people who made it happen.In just four wordsthe capital of everythingDuke Ellington captured Manhattan during one of the most exciting and celebrated eras in our history: the Jazz Age. Supreme City is the story of Manhattans growth and transformation in the 1920s and the brilliant people behind it. Nearly all of the makers of modern Manhattan came from elsewhere: Walter Chrysler from the Kansas prairie; entertainment entrepreneur Florenz Ziegfeld from Chicago. William Paley, founder of the CBS radio network, was from Philadelphia, while his rival David Sarnoff, founder of NBC, was a Russian immigrant. Cosmetics queen Elizabeth Arden was Canadian and her rival, Helena Rubinstein, Polish. All of them had in common vaulting ambition and a desire to fulfill their dreams in New York. As mass communication emerged, the city moved from downtown to midtown through a series of engineering triumphsGrand Central Terminal and the new and newly chic Park Avenue it created, the Holland Tunnel, and the modern skyscraper. In less than ten years Manhattan became the social, cultural, and commercial hub of the country. The 1920s was the Age of Jazzand the Age of Ambition.Transporting, deeply researched, and utterly fascinating, Supreme City elegantly introduces one vivid character after another to re-create a vital and archetypical eraA triumph (The New York Times).

Now a major television event from Apple TV and Steven Spielberg (starring Austin Butler, Callum Turner and Anthony Boyle) and companion to Band of Brothers and The Pacific.Seconds after Bradys plane was hit, the Hundredths entire formation was broken up and scattered by swarms of single-engine planes, and by rockets launched by twin-engine planes that flew parallelMeet the Flying Fortresses of the American Eighth Air Force, Britains Lancaster comrades, who helped to bring down the NazisHistorian and World War II expert Donald Miller brings us the story of the bomber boys who brought the war to Hitlers doorstep. Unlike ground soldiers they slept on clean beds, drank beer in local pubs, and danced to the swing music of the travelling Air Force bands. But they were also an elite group of fighters who put their lives on the line in the most dangerous role of all.Miller takes readers from the adrenaline filled battles in the sky, to the airbases across England, the German prison camps, and onto the ground to understand the devastation faced by civilians.Drawn from interviews, oral histories, and American, British and German archives, Masters of the Air is the authoritative, deeply moving and important account of the worlds first and only bomber war.

Tras Hermanos de sangre y The Pacific, Los amos del aire es el libro que ha inspirado la nueva serie de Steven Spielberg y Tom Hanks para Apple TV. Los amos del aire es la historia personal de los bombarderos aliados que en la Segunda Guerra Mundial golpearon con su carga letal el mismisimo corazon del Tercer Reich. Combinando el poder del rigor historico con la fuerza narrativa propia de la mejor ficcion, su aclamado autor, Donald Miller, transporta al lector en un viaje trepidante a traves de los cielos teñidos de fuego sobre Berlin, Hannover y Dresde, una guerra sin cuartel con devastadoras consecuencias tanto para la maquinaria de guerra nazi como para el pueblo aleman librada a mas de 7000 metros de altitud, unas cotas a las que jamas se habia combatido anteriormente y que llevaron a extremos inconcebibles la resistencia fisica y psicologica de las tripulaciones aliadas. El combate aereo era mortal pero intermitente: periodos de inactividad y ansiedad eran seguidos por breves descargas de fuego y terror. La campaña de bombardeos angloamericana contra la Alemania nazi fue la operacion militar mas larga de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, una guerra dentro de otra guerra. Hasta que los soldados aliados entraron en Alemania en los ultimos meses de la guerra, fue la unica batalla librada dentro de territorio germano. Pero mas alla de los aspectos militares, Los amos del aire es un relato tremendamente humano, de la vida en la Inglaterra del momento y en los campos de prisioneros alemanes, donde decenas de miles de aviadores pasaron parte de la guerra, y de las espeluznantes marchas del hambre que los aviadores capturados se vieron obligados a realizar a traves del pais que sus bombas destruyeron. Elaborado a partir de entrevistas recientes, historias orales y archivos estadounidenses, britanicos, alemanes y de otros paises, Los amos del aire es un relato autorizado y profundamente conmovedor de la primera y unica guerra de bombarderos de la historia.

Tras Hermanos de sangre y The Pacific, Los amos del aire es el libro que ha inspirado la nueva serie de Steven Spielberg y Tom Hanks para Apple TV.Los amos del aire es la historia personal de los bombarderos aliados que en la Segunda Guerra Mundial golpearon con su carga letal el mismisimo corazon del Tercer Reich. Combinando el poder del rigor historico con la fuerza narrativa propia de la mejor ficcion, su aclamado autor, Donald L. Miller, transporta al lector en un viaje trepidante a traves de los cielos teñidos de fuego sobre Berlin, Hannover y Dresde, una guerra sin cuartel con devastadoras consecuencias tanto para la maquinaria de guerra nazi como para el pueblo aleman librada a mas de 7000 metros de altitud, unas cotas a las que jamas se habia combatido anteriormente y que llevaron a extremos inconcebibles la resistencia fisica y psicologica de las tripulaciones aliadas. El combate aereo era mortal pero intermitente: periodos de inactividad y ansiedad eran seguidos por breves descargas de fuego y terror.La campaña de bombardeos angloamericana contra la Alemania nazi fue la operacion militar mas larga de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, una guerra dentro de otra guerra. Hasta que los soldados aliados entraron en Alemania en los ultimos meses de la guerra, fue la unica batalla librada dentro de territorio germano. Pero mas alla de los aspectos militares, Los amos del aire es un relato tremendamente humano, de la vida en la Inglaterra del momento y en los campos de prisioneros alemanes, donde decenas de miles de aviadores pasaron parte de la guerra, y de las espeluznantes marchas del hambre que los aviadores capturados se vieron obligados a realizar a traves del pais que sus bombas destruyeron. Elaborado a partir de entrevistas recientes, historias orales y archivos estadounidenses, britanicos, alemanes y de otros paises, Los amos del aire es un relato autorizado y profundamente conmovedor de la primera y unica guerra de bombarderos de la historia.

Drawing on previously unpublished eyewitness accounts, prizewinning historian Donald L. Miller has written what critics are calling one of the most powerful accounts of warfare ever published.Here are the horror and heroism of World War II in the words of the men who fought it, the journalists who covered it, and the civilians who were caught in its fury. Miller gives us an up-close, deeply personal view of a war that was more savagely foughtand whose outcome was in greater doubtthan readers might imagine. This is the war that Americans at the home front would have read about had they had access to the previously censored testimony of the soldiers on which Miller builds his gripping narrative.Miller covers the entire waron land, at sea, and in the airand provides new coverage of the brutal island fighting in the Pacific, the bomber war over Europe, the liberation of the death camps, and the contributions of African Americans and other minorities. He concludes with a suspenseful, never-before-told story of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, based on interviews with the men who flew the mission that ended the war.