SCHWEINFURT–REGENSBURG 1943: Eighth Air Force’s costly early daylight battles is a book that chronicles one of the fiercest and most pivotal air campaigns of World War II.

Since August 1942, when the Eighth Air Force of the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) mounted its first bombing raid over German-occupied France, it had been gradually growing in numbers and perfecting tactics for carrying out strategic bombing missions against key industries in Germany deemed vital to its war effort.

The goals of the Eighth Air Force during 1943 were twofold: (1) to prove that B-17 bombers (and some B-24 units as well) could successfully carry out deep penetration raids into Germany without fighter escort and (2) defeat the Luftwaffe's day fighter force, whose aim was to make the USAAF strategic bombing campaign so prohibitively costly that the USAAF would be faced with little choice but to suspend its daylight bombing campaign. Were that to happen that would leave the Royal Air Force's Bomber Command (which flew night bombing raids over Germany) as the sole offensive arm taking the war into the heart of Germany.

The book reads almost like a daily diary, explaining in considerable detail how the USAAF daylight bombing campaign grew during 1943, along with the number of USAAF fighter units tasked with escorting the bombers as far as their limited range would permit. The various countermeasures employed by the Luftwaffe day fighter forces are also laid out. Photos of the various aircraft involved in the bombing campaign are aplenty for the reader to examine, in addition to illustrations and diagrams that show how the campaign played itself out.

The climax of the daylight campaign came with the raids by the Eighth Air Force on Schweinfurt (where most of the ball bearings crucial to the overall German war effort were produced) and Regensburg (where a large number of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters, one of the mainstays in the Luftwaffe day fighter force, were manufactured). Both places were situated deep inside Germany and were subject to attack from the Eighth Air Force in August and October 1943. Unfortunately, VIII Bomber Command suffered heavily, losing 60 B-17 bombers (amounting to 600 airmen) on the August 17, 1943 dual mission to Schweinfurt and Regensburg. And on the second raid to Schweinfurt in October 1943, 77 B-17 bombers were lost.

Furthermore, as the book points out, "[m]orale at bomber bases was a major problem. The crews had been told time and again that the Luftwaffe fighter force was almost finished, but {B-17] Fortress crews were currently incurring a casualty rate higher than any other branch of the US forces: during 1943, only about 25 percent of Eighth Air Force bomber crewmen completed their 25-mission tours --- the other 75 percent were killed, severely wounded, or captured. It was difficult to persuade the men who survived Schweinfurt that the opposition encountered was the last effort of a beaten force."

SCHWEINFURT - REGENSBURG 1943 ends with an indication of what the future would bring with the introduction of the P-51 Mustang fighter to the Eighth Air Force. It would develop into a formidable long-range, high altitude fighter plane that in the year to come would be instrumental in breaking the back of the Luftwaffe fighter arm and ensuring the continuance and eventual success of the USAAF daylight bombing campaign.