Clean Sweep

VIII Fighter Command Against the Luftwaffe, 1942–45

By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver, BrigGen Clarence E. "Bud" Anderson USAF (Ret.) - foreword

Narrated by: Lance C. Fuller

Bloomsbury presents Clean Sweep by Thomas McKelvey Cleaver, read by Lance C Fuller.

A vivid history, packed with first-hand accounts, of the US Eighth Air Force's VIII Fighter Command from its foundation in 1942 through to its victory in the skies over Nazi Germany.

On August 7, 1942, two major events occurred on opposite sides of the planet. In the South Pacific, the United States went on the offensive with the First Marine Division landing on Guadalcanal. In England, 12 B-17 bombers of Eighth Air Force bombed the Rouen–Sotteville railroad marshalling yards in France. While the mission was small, the aerial struggle that began that day would ultimately cost the United States more men killed and wounded by the end of the war in Europe than the Marines would lose in the Pacific War.

Clean Sweep is the story of the creation, development and operation of the Eighth Air Force Fighter Command and the battle to establish daylight air superiority over the Luftwaffe so that the invasion of Europe could be successful.

Thomas McKelvey Cleaver has had a lifelong interest in the history of the fighter force that defeated the Luftwaffe over Germany. He has collected many first-hand accounts from participants over the past 50 years, getting to know pilots such as the legendary “Hub” Zemke, Don Blakeslee and Chuck Yeager, as well as meeting and interviewing leading Luftwaffe pilots Adolf Galland, Gunther Rall and Walter “Count Punski” Krupinski. This story is told through accounts gathered from both sides.

©2023 Thomas McKelvey Cleaver (P)2023 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Could not stop listening to!

The amount of research that went into this book, is staggering. Highly recommend. You ad though you wee in the cockpit!!!

Outstanding!

An absolute companion to 'Masters of the Air! The author was very comprehensive in accounting for events significant to both the American & German air operations.

My Dad flew a B~17.

My Dad flew a B-17 and was shot down 3 times. The details in this book show me that we were lucky he
home. I never would have been born. Greatest Generation for sure.

Lots of firsthand detail

Overall, I did enjoy this book even though it is very similar to a couple of others I have read that cover the same part of the war. I know it's raining a bit because of some of the gaffe's made by the narrator. Some of these he cleaned up toward the end of the book.

Compared unfavorably to Masters of the Air

Although the story benefitted from interviews with many of the subjects in the book, it seemed like the author simply rehashed flight logs and official histories of the units with not much in the way of original commentary. It was also struck by the fact that there is no mention at all of the Tuskegee Airmen, which strikes me as a notable omission.