Clean Sweep: VIII Fighter Command Against the Luftwaffe, 1942-45

A vivid history, packed with first-hand accounts, of the US Eighth Air Force’s VIII Fighter Command from its foundation in 1942 through to its victory in the skies over Nazi Germany.

On August 7, 1942, two major events occurred on opposite sides of the planet. In the South Pacific, the United States went on the offensive with the First Marine Division landing on Guadalcanal. In England, 12 B-17 bombers of Eighth Air Force bombed the Rouen-Sotteville railroad marshalling yards in France. While the mission was small, the aerial struggle that began that day would ultimately cost the United States more men killed and wounded by the end of the war in Europe than the Marines would lose in the Pacific War.

Clean Sweep is the story of the creation, development and operation of the Eighth Air Force Fighter Command and the battle to establish daylight air superiority over the Luftwaffe so that the invasion of Europe could be successful.

Thomas McKelvey Cleaver has had a lifelong interest in the history of the fighter force that defeated the Luftwaffe over Germany. He has collected many first-hand accounts from participants over the past 50 years, getting to know pilots such as the legendary ＂Hub＂ Zemke, Don Blakeslee and Chuck Yeager, as well as meeting and interviewing leading Luftwaffe pilots Adolf Galland, Gunther Rall and Walter ＂Count Punski＂ Krupinski. This story is told through accounts gathered from both sides.

Thomas McKelvey Cleaver has been a published writer for the past 40 years, with his most recent work being the best-selling Osprey titles The Frozen Chosen (2016), Pacific Thunder (2017), Tidal Wave (2018), Holding the Line (2019), MiG Alley (2019), and I Will Run Wild (2020). He is also the author of Aces of the 78th Fighter Group and F4F Wildcat and F6F Hellcat Aces of VF-2, as well as Fabled Fifteen: The Pacific War Saga of Carrier Air Group 15 and The Bridgebusters: The True Story of the Catch-22 Bomb Group. During his 30 years as a screenwriter in Hollywood, he wrote the cult classic The Terror Within and worked as a supervising producer on a number of TV and cable series. He served in the US Navy in Vietnam and currently lives in Encino, California.