373
pages, Headline, ISBN-13: 978-0747259640
If
it’s true that “[t]he Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton”
(probably apocryphal), then the Second World War was won in the laboratories of
the Allies…and if said battle was “the nearest run thing you ever saw in your
life”, then so was the race to create and perfect the latest technology to win
the war – and make no mistake, it really was a near-run thing, as the level of
technology being developed by Nazi Germany during the closing years of World
War II was quite amazing (and not a little frightening). The depth and breadth
of the research is astounding, from helicopters to jet aircraft to ballistic
missiles. We must be thankful that political interference prevented these developments
from having a larger impact on the outcome of the war.
There
were designs for a hypersonic space plane-a manned V1 flying bomb from which
the hapless pilot would eject moments after aiming his craft at an Allied
target-and plans for aircraft that consisted only of wings, along with dozens
of other prototypes that were technologically way ahead of their time against
which the Allies would have been helpless. And it is here where Last
Talons of the Eagle is
so valuable, for whereas much has been written about the doodlebugs, V2
rockets, and other advanced technologies that the Nazis used to terrorize
Europe during World War II, the less well-known story of German scientists secretly
devising plans for an incredible battery of weapons that had the potential to
drastically affect the outcome of the war, all while under the constant barrage
of Allied bombing, is brought fully to light. Exhaustively researched and
grippingly written, Last Talons of the
Eagle shows how history might well have been very different had these craft
ever flown.
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