Praise for Big Week:
An Amazon Best Book of the Year
“With the aid of diaries, memoirs and his own interviews, Mr. Holland gives a detailed, crewman’s-eye view of combat from inside the British, American and German aircraft during the months leading up to Big Week and during the week itself. For those hoping for war-movie stuff, rest assured that the enemy fighters do come in at 6 o’clock, the guns do hammer, the sun does glint and the ‘chutes do blossom in the sky. Still it’s a serious and important story as well as a dramatic one, and Mr. Holland tells it with verve and authority.”—David A. Price, Wall Street Journal
“Holland excels at writing engaging, accessible books, weaving the latest scholarship in with personal accounts gleaned from diaries, archives, and interviews . . . Big Week is a story about people [and] Holland also brings less celebrated figures to the fore . . . [The book’s] major accomplishment is to firmly place Big Week and the events surrounding it within the larger historical narrative of the Allied campaign in Western Europe. It was, Holland argues, the turning point of not just the air battle, but of the entire war.”—Richard R. Muller, World War II Magazine
“James Holland gives us a definitive, detailed, and highly readable portrait of this sustained air assault which was such an important step on the way to V-E Day . . . This one is well worth the reading time.”—American Spectator
“Highly detailed . . . The interplay of personal stories with the broader strategic picture makes this book especially illuminating . . . A fascinating must-read for World War II aficionados.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“This objective work, comprised of narratives often based on personal interviews with the author, provides views from both sides, including firsthand accounts of actions by fighter pilots and bomber crews. A solid popular history on an important event. Recommended for readers interested in World War II’s air war, particularly in Europe.”—Library Journal
Praise for The Allies Strike Back, 1941–1943: The War in the West, Volume 2:
A Military History Book Club Main Selection
An Amazon Best Book of the Month (History)
“As someone who considers himself well-read in World War II history, this reviewer was pleasantly surprised to discover how much he did not know, and, moreover, how much of what he thought he knew was simply not true. The second volume in Holland’s trilogy is even better than his first . . . A fascinating story of how the fortunes of war changed in obvious—and particularly not so obvious—ways.”—Col. Eric M. Walters, Military Review
“Detailed, well-researched, and comprehensive . . . Holland makes a strong case . . . [He] shifts smoothly between high-level strategy and tactical battlefield events, producing a good refresher to the large strategic picture for those who are deeply read in WWII history and an excellent introduction to the war in Western Europe for the general reader.”—Publishers Weekly
“An illuminating read from a skilled historian . . . Holland delivers a detailed, opinionated account of fighting in North Africa, the Atlantic submarine campaign, and the air war while acknowledging (and often describing) the far larger war in Russia . . . Expert, anecdote-filled, thoroughly entertaining.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Holland puts the case for Allied technological and military skills as a vital factor in turning the war’s tide, and makes us eager for the third and final part of what now ranks as a towering work of historical research and writing.”—BBC History Magazine
“A well-researched, lively account.”—CHOICE
“Holland’s two greatest qualities, his engaging writing style and his ability to weave multiple threads into a convincing whole, are on display once more in this accessible and authoritative history . . . Holland, a successful fiction author as well, keeps his reader gripped with an engrossing tale, which both educates and entertains. In Holland’s own words this is ‘a truly epic and astonishing story’ and the same could be said for his book.”—History of War (UK)
“Holland shoots down the myth of German invincibility . . . All the great turning points of 1941–43 are here. A triumph”—Sunday Express (UK)
“Holland brings a fresh eye to the ebb and flow of the conflict . . . [A] majestic saga”—Literary Review (UK)
“This second volume easily reaches the benchmark set by its predecessor . . . The style is crisp, engaging, absorbing, it really does have the feel of a fresh and revisionist perspective on the momentous events that occurred between 1941 and 1943.”—Soldier (UK)
Praise for The Rise of Germany, 1939–1941: The War in the West, Volume 1:
A Military History Book Club Main Selection
“This is narrative history as intimate, intricate tapestry . . . Mr. Holland’s success is built in part on an engaging writing style and in part on a genuinely fresh approach to events that have been so often—and apparently definitively—recounted. This is at heart an operational narrative, but with a difference: Mr. Holland takes the time and space to enhance his recounting of troop and ship movements and clashes of arms with the stuff of wider humanity. He deftly interweaves the experiences of refugees, of civilians, of the warriors’ loved ones and of the political elites, while never distracting us with meaningless sentimentality or extraneous personal detail. This is harder to do than it looks. Mr. Holland’s achievement is exceptional . . . [An] epic narrative.”—Wall Street Journal
“Impeccably researched and superbly written . . . [Holland] skewers a number of myths about the early years of the Second World War . . . Holland’s fascinating saga offers a mixture of captivating new research and well-considered revisionism. The next two volumes should be unmissable.”—Guardian
01/07/2019
This detailed but confusingly structured account of the 1943–1944 air war over Europe concludes with Big Week, a series of air battles waged by the U.S. Air Force and the RAF to break the back of the Luftwaffe ahead of the invasion of Normandy. Though it was “largely forgotten,” historian Holland argues the campaign was “a pivotal moment for both sides.” The account is meticulously researched and provides vivid details about individual pilots and aircrew members, both Allied and German. The bombers and fighters are depicted faithfully, as are the often wrongheaded strategic considerations of their commanders. Until the final third of the book, which addresses the decisive actions directly, the narrative structure is often digressive, with detailed pilot and commander biographies and lengthy backstories of the developments of specific aircraft types. Holland captures the essential logic of the bomber and fighter campaigns over Europe, and he knows his military history, but he often assumes a high level of knowledge on the reader’s part. This advanced study is informative, but not really a lay-friendly history for readers seeking tales of derring-do. (Nov.)
★ 2018-07-30
A highly detailed account of the crucial week in February 1944 when American and British air forces conducted a series of air raids on German industrial and military targets.
Military historian and novelist Holland (The Allies Strike Back, 1941-1943, 2017, etc.) looks at the campaign both in its context as preparation for the Normandy invasion later that year and in its impact on the American, British, and German fighter and bomber crewmen who took part in it. In the fall of 1943, U.S. and British air corps generals were operating under the belief that the war could be won by bombing alone. To that end, they were running steady missions against German targets, with the U.S. bombing by daylight and the British at night. However, a shortage of long-range fighter planes meant that the bombers were exposed for much of their missions, and the resulting high attrition was unsustainable. Worse yet, unless the Luftwaffe could be reduced in strength, a successful Normandy invasion was a pipe dream. The answer came both in a change in tactics—making destruction of the Luftwaffe the top priority—and in the introduction of a new weapon, the P-51 Mustang long-range fighter. With the P-51 accompanying them, bombers could reach their German targets without leaving behind fighter protection, and the fighters, instead of shepherding the bombers to their targets, were set free to confront their Luftwaffe counterparts. All this came together in a week of raids in the third week of February 1944. Holland follows several individuals from all sides of the war, including Jimmy Stewart, who served as a major and flew several missions; Gen. Jimmy Doolittle, who took over command of the 8th Air Force; and German ace Heinz Knoke, who survived the war despite being shot down several times. The interplay of personal stories with the broader strategic picture makes the book especially illuminating, and the author also provides a few pages of helpful diagrams and maps.
A fascinating must-read for World War II aficionados.
