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Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining but not accurate
Review: Definitely not the best book available about the low level mission;this is an entertaining book which is full of errors,notably the statement that Wongo Wongo {which crashed into the sea}was the lead plane.The lead plane was always Teggie Ann,a fact which can be verified by talking to members of the 376th bomb group.Still of some interest as long as the book is read with a skeptical eye.Black Sunday is better,though still flawed.
Rating: 
Summary: The Best and Most Accurate for the time
Review: I am overjoyed that this great book is once again in print. Dugan and Stewart, both of whom served with the Army Air Forces in World War II and knew many of the participants, were in a unique position that later writers are not. While they were somewhat handicapped in that some of the documents related to World War II were still classified when they were writing, their information was based on knowledge provided by the participants when they were still young men, with the memories fresh in their minds, and less convulted by the effects of the distance of years and their own personal aging. I bought and read the original while on my way to US Air Force basic training in the summer of 1963 and it is still one of favorite books. Although modern enthusiasts attempt to pick it apart, it will always remain the most important book on the Ploesti campaigns.Sam McGowan, Author "The Cave", a novel of the Vietnam War
Rating: 
Summary: Great WWII book
Review: I am pleased to find this book again after many years. My grandfather is featured in this book, with quotes from the journal he kept during his time of capture. I was priveleged to meet several of the POW's at a bi-annual reunion when I was a senior in high school. This is a terrific book and extremely interesting. It will make you want to learn more about this period in our history.
Rating:
Summary: Very well done!
Review: I was surprised to find this book back in print; the last time I read it was around 1970. I wanted a copy of the book because my father, John V. Hogan (not John B. as listed in the book) in featured in the chapter "Zero Raiders" (pages 47-49). Since the book arrived shortly before X-Mass, I have read this book from cover to cover three times. It is a remarkable history which allows the reader to feel the excitement and terror that the crews of the B-24-D's must have experienced. In someways it reminded me of Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff" (which was published at least a decade later), in that it features one hero's air war (Norman Appold) throughout the story to provide a backdrop to this great, though tragic battle. Well written and detailed by men who knew the combatants, it is a very real history. As a child I grew up hearing about Norm Appold, General Ent, Killer Kane and K.K. Compton. Reading this book made me wish that my father was still alive to tell me more. Someone should send this book to Steven Speilberg suggesting it as a powerful follow-up to "Saving Pvt. Ryan". Highly recommeded to anyone looking for a better understanding of the people who fought against incredible odds to win WWll.
Rating:
Summary: Ploesti as told to me
Review: The book was well done and accurate as far as I know from the stories of the Tidal wave as told to me by my father who is featured in the book. I was somewhat disappointed by the fewer pictures in this edition. The earlier edditions had more pictures. (ie more pictures of my father JD Palm who was the brave soul that led the first wave to the proper turn point and was the only one of the first wave to turn at the proper place and consequently was the first one in the target area. According to him was able to salvo his bombs in the target in spite of being wounded and on fire. He crash landed and saved all of the crew that was not killed by the initial Direct hit. It took real guts to continue to the target area alone and do the right thing) His exploits were accurately reported in the book with this omission that he salvoed his bombs ON Target and the first to do so! A well written and detailed account with the mention of many brave airmen by name.
Rating:
Summary: Ploesti as told to me
Review: The book was well done and accurate as far as I know from the stories of the Tidal wave as told to me by my father who is featured in the book. I was somewhat disappointed by the fewer pictures in this edition. The earlier edditions had more pictures. (ie more pictures of my father JD Palm who was the brave soul that led the first wave to the proper turn point and was the only one of the first wave to turn at the proper place and consequently was the first one in the target area. According to him was able to salvo his bombs in the target in spite of being wounded and on fire. He crash landed and saved all of the crew that was not killed by the initial Direct hit. It took real guts to continue to the target area alone and do the right thing) His exploits were accurately reported in the book with this omission that he salvoed his bombs ON Target and the first to do so! A well written and detailed account with the mention of many brave airmen by name.
Rating: 
Summary: A Peek Into Post-War Triumphalism
Review: This work is best viewed not as an objetcive history of the event but rather a look into the attitudes of New Frontier America towards the war that America and the Kennedy generation had won. That is the era and the audience to which this work was addressed. The book brims with superlatives and lacks any real criticism or analysis of America training, equipment or tactics at the time of the raid. British and Commonwealth figures who do make it into the text are suitably odd colorful characters such as the RAF squadron leader (major in US-terms) who pops up as a gunnery expert. Germans are stoic and somehow unmenacingly militaristic and certainly not Nazis.
Perhaps the sadist part of this far to optomistic look at the USAAF's daylight bombing campaign is the uncritical acceptance of the wartime bomb damage assesment. This gave the Tidal Wave crews credit for reducing Ploesti's refined oil output by 50-70% for the rest of the war. According to the US Strategic Bombing Survey such levels of destruction were not reached until more than a year later after a series of much larger raids by the 15th Air Force. Read has history pretty bad, but as a socialogical look at America in 1963, quite good.
F.E.'Mike'Bol,CDR,USN-Ret.
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