High Noon
Print by Robert Bailey©

“Let’s go Lieutenant; your crew is scheduled to fly”. That is how pilot Robert Shoens was awaken on a cold March morning in 1944. Little did he know that by the day’s end, many of the bunks in his hut would be empty and this mission would forever be synonymous with his Crew. The date was March 6, 1944, and the Eighth Air Force would launch a full scale assault on the German capital of Berlin. “High Noon over Haseluenne” is a microcosm look at one bomb group that flew the mission and the catastrophic results that ensued. The book deals with the 100th Bomb Group, “The Bloody Hundredth” and the mission that solidified that moniker. The concentrated attacks by the Luftwaffe would destroy 69 American Bombers that day, the single highest loss for any mission by the 8th Air Force and 15 of those losses would come from the 100th Bomb Group. Lt Robert Shoens is our guide.  His story, and that of many other 100th BG crewmen, puts you in the melee that followed the head-on attacks by over 100 German Me109’s & FW190’s. We take you inside the men and machines that had to brave one of the deadliest air battles of World War II and let them tell the story. “High Noon over Haseluenne” is filled with firsthand accounts, personal diaries, letters home, news clippings and illustrated with over 200 photos. This is real history “as it happened” on the March 3-8, 1944 missions to Berlin by the 100th Bomb Group. The book is capped off by a one hundred page historical appendices compiled by noted 8th AF researcher Paul M. Andrews (“Project Bits and Pieces”).

Ordering Information: Price $69.00 (Pre-order) Schiffer Books  Available in May 9th!