WINGS OF FIRE, The victorious climax of the Airwar against Germany and Japan

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WINGS OF FIRE by Edward Jablonski is a comprehensive illustrated history of the decisive role played by aviation in World War II. 

WINGS OF FIRE chronicles the last days of the Third Reich and the collapse of the Japanese Empire. It is a vivid record of the frantic desperation with which the Axis powers sought to stave off defeat as the Allies became more sophisticated in both their weapons and their ways of waging war.

In the Pacific, the Japanese were forced steadily back from the outer perimeter of their defenses, and WINGS OF FIRE traces the bloody progress of their retreat. Dominating the story are graphic accounts of the futile suicidal Banzai charges and Kamikaze air attacks which the retreating forces resorted to with growing fanaticism as, one by one, the Philippines, Burma, Saipan, and Okinawa were lost, and finally the Japanese home islands reeled under massive air attacks climaxing with the atomic raids on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.In Europe, Germany gathered the shattered remnants of her once invincible military might for one final effort against the besieging Allies. "Goering's Big Blow," as the battle was called, was an heroic but pointless campaign straight out of the First World War, and recreated here it demonstrates the ultimate panic of Hitler's masterminds as they faced a holocaust beyond anything they could have imagined at the beginning of the war.