The Pointblank Directive
Three Generals and the Untold Story of the Daring Plan that Saved D-Day
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Where was the Luftwaffe on D-Day? Following decades of debate, 2010 saw a formerly classified history restored and in it was a new set of answers. Pointblank is the result of extensive new research that creates a richly textured portrait of perhaps the last untold story of D-Day: three uniquely talented men and why the German Air Force was unable to mount an effective combat against the invasion forces. Following a year of unremarkable bombing against German aircraft industries, General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, commander of the U.S. Army Air Forces, placed his lifelong friend General Carl A. "Tooey" Spaatz in command of the strategic bombing forces in Europe, and his protégé, General James "Jimmy" Doolittle, command of the Eighth Air Force in England. For these fellow aviation strategists, he had one set of orders – sweep the skies clean of the Luftwaffe by June 1944. Spaatz and Doolittle couldn't do that but they could clear the skies sufficiently to gain air superiority over the D-Day beaches. The plan was called Pointblank.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Keeney, a veteran author on WWII, relates the story of the successful air offensive that broke the back of the German air force in the spring of 1944 and paved the way for Allied victory in WWII. Keeney's history of Operation Pointblank differs from others in his emphasis on the operation's connection to the overall campaign against Germany in Western Europe. He demonstrates how the air victory enabled the successful landings on D-Day and further allowed the Allied armies to prosecute their land campaign with the comfortable knowledge that there was no threat to them from the air. Keeney explores how an Allied air campaign that was failing badly in November 1943 achieved total victory a mere five months later through new leadership, new technology, and most important, by jettisoning old tactics in favor of aggressive fighter sweeps that took the battle to the Luftwaffe everywhere. Among many personal stories of aerial combat, he makes the important point that victory in the air cannot be fully appreciated without understanding how critical it was to winning the decisive battle on the ground: D-Day. Keeney's well-written history is aimed at a general audience, but experts will find it an enjoyable read. B&w photos.
