This book tells the story of the Mighty Eighth during three years of bitter fighting in the smoked filled skies above Germany and Occupied Europe. It was a harsh, harrowing costly battle with 26,000 American airmen killed, 1,900 seriously injured and 6,300 aircraft destroyed. Their missions included the bombing of U-boat bases, oil refineries, railway marshalling yards, airfields in France, Holland and Belgium and general industrial targets throughout the length and breadth of Germany. On D-Day their task was to destroy Normandy beach defenses as the Allied troops stormed ashore. On 13th May 1945 after a Victory Flypast over its headquarters near High Wycombe the majority of the Eighth began making plans to return home. By February 1946 the exodus was complete. Fifty or so memorials, dotted about England, are all that is left of this mighty war machine which made such an enormous contribution to gaining peace in Europe.