The life expectancy of an American B-17 crew in Europe during World War II was eleven missions, yet crews had to fly twenty-five–and eventually thirty–before they could return home. Against these long odds the bomber crews of the U.S. 8th Air Force, based in England, joined the armada of Allied aircraft that pummeled Germany day after day. Radioman George Webster recounts the terrors they confronted: physical and mental exhaustion, bitter cold at high altitudes, lethal shrapnel from flak, and German fighters darting among bombers like feeding sharks.