Military Review English Edition March-April 2015 | Page 145

BOOK REVIEWS

Supplementing academic manuscripts that are often
inaccessible to all but the most studied, this work arrives as a valuable and highly utilitarian complement
to the current field of U.S. military histories.
Capt. Nathan A. Jennings, U.S. Army, West
Point, N.Y.

FORGOTTEN FIFTEENTH: The Daring Airmen
Who Crippled Hitler’s War Machine
Barrett Tillman, Regnery History, Washington, D.C.,
2014, 338 pages

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bscured to history behind the Eighth Air Force’s
bombing campaigns from Britain, the Fifteenth
Air Force Bomber and Fighter Wings carried
the weight of America’s airpower to Hitler’s most crucial
resources during the war, crippling the Nazi military’s
ability to move and fight.
Barrett Tillman’s book offers aviation history buffs
a comprehensive look at the trials and successes of the
Fifteenth Air Force—with a sobering look at what the
men, who crippled Hitler’s fuel supply in the Balkans,
endured in the lengthy, excruciating fight. Flying missions from Italy, the Fifteenth penetrated the heart of
Nazi-occupied territory every day, facing fierce resistance and suffering devastating losses from German
forces and their allies. Understanding the very emotional
undertones of those losses, Tillman takes a very tempered approach and carefully discusses the missions and
tribulations the Fifteenth faced. He does a very good
job of looking deep into the men who served—and the
sheer number of men and aircraft they lost—compared
to the effectiveness of the bombing campaign itself.
Using examples such as Ploiesti, he discusses the contrast
between the persistence of U.S. bomber crews in the face
of fierce resistance and that of the Axis engineers in the
face of Allied bombing.
Born through the efforts of Jimmy Doolittle following the campaigns in North Africa, the Fifteenth
Air Force flew out of the plains of Foggia, Italy to be
the hammer by which the Allies would pound Nazi
Germany into surrender. Tillman does a very thorough job of describing the major events that made the
Fifteenth what it was, from the stutter-step development of the Foggia airfield to the constantly shifting
MILITARY REVIEW  March-April 2015

target priorities—production plants, fuel supplies, and
transport lines. The historical aspects of the Fifteenth’s
missions, sacrifices, successes, and failures go to the
heart of the grueling combined bombing campaign in
the east. Tillman goes into great detail regarding the
allied support for missions in the Balkans and Eastern
Europe, to include using Russian airbases to shorten
mission times and support partisan rebels.
There are extensive numbers of units and people
involved in the success of the Fifteenth’s mission. Tillman
gives great attention to the perseverance of those players
who drove the Fifteenth’s ability to cripple the oil and
industrial supply of World War II Germany. Forgotten
Fifteenth takes a great look at the capability of the U.S.
industrial machine to continue creating bombers and
aircraft, and the undaunted spirit of U.S. airmen who
flew the missions day-in and day-out knowing the
odds. The story speaks volumes for how crucial the
Fifteenth’s mission was to winning the war and brings
the story to the reader in uncompromising detail.
Maj. Scott Hopkins, U.S. Air Force, Fort
Leavenworth, Kan.

CONFLICT AND COOPERATION IN THE
GLOBAL COMMONS: A Comprehensive Approach
for International Security
Scott Jasper, ed., Georgetown University Press,
Washington, D.C., 2012, 280 pages

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onflict and Cooperation in the Global Commons
is a collection of essays edited by Scott Jasper
covering various aspects of the global commons—namely the maritime, air, space, and cyber
domains. The volume describes in detail the background of regulatory approaches in each domain
and discusses current practices and issues. It then
proposes a multi-layered, whole-of-government,
whole-of-nations approach to security in the global
commons. The book specifically highlights the importance of cooperation as a prerequisite needed to
harness the disparate elements of American national
power, to include the political, diplomatic, economic,
and military realms.
Having put its own house in order, the United
States would, according to this book, need to then
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