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Above the Reich cover art

Above the Reich

By: Colin Heaton, Anne-Marie Lewis
Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews, Mark Bramhall, Arthur Morey, Pete Bradbury, Dominic Hoffman, Fred Sanders, Patricia Santomasso, Sean Patrick Hopkins, Barrett Leddy
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Summary

Sensational eyewitness accounts from the most heroic and legendary American aviators of World War II, never before published as a book

They are voices lost to time. Beginning in the late 1970s, five veteran airmen sat for private interviews. Decades after the guns fell silent, they recounted in vivid detail the most dangerous missions that made the difference in the war. Ed Haydon dueled with the deadliest of German aces - and forced him to the ground. Robert Johnson racked up 27 kills in his P-47 Thunderbolt, but nearly lost his life when his plane was shot to ribbons and his guns jammed. Cigar-chomping Curtis LeMay was the Air Corps general who devised the bomber tactics that pummeled Germany's war machine. Robin Olds was a West Point football hero who became one of the most dogged, aggressive fighter pilots in the European theater, relentlessly pursuing Germans in his P-38 Lightning. And Jimmy Doolittle became the most celebrated American airman of the war - maybe even of all time - after he led the audacious raid to bomb Tokyo. Today these heroes are long gone, but now, in this incredible volume, they tell their stories in their own words.

©2021 Colin Heaton and Anne-Marie Lewis (P)2021 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Readers with military background in general, and interest in and knowledge of the war in particular, will welcome and applaud this revealing history. Readers encountering information about the war for the first time may have their eyeballs pop out on springs.... The text pulls you along like an action/adventure novel, owing to the vivid voices of these five men and the obstacles they had to overcome. At the same time, it feels like you’re sitting in the same room with them hearing the stories firsthand." (New York Journal of Books

"Colin Heaton has once again produced a series of first-person accounts from the men who made aviation history...an invaluable addition to military history." (Adam Makos, New York Times best-selling author of A Higher Call and Spearhead

"Among the top tier of World War II histories." (Jay A. Stout, author of Hell's Angels

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NOT what it claims to be

The information says "They are voices lost to time", giving the impression you'll hear recordings of the actual people telling their own stories. It isn't. I got suspicious when listening to Lt. Col. James Doolittle USAAF. The voice sounded too young. Doolittle is also not listed in the credits. So, you're hearing a narrator and not a genuine recording of the man himself. (That's a big BAD!) Ok, I'll accept that those original recordings may be of very poor quality after 70 years, but I still wanted to hear the original recordings. I wanted to hear James Doolittle's own voice! I would have been ok if they gave the original recording + a re-recorded version, to help me understand what was being said in the original (degraded) original, but this is misselling. Sadly, I'm sending this Audible book back for a refund. What a disappointment

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