The Peenemunde Raid by Martin Middlebrook is the telling of the British raid on the German rocket facility at Peenemunde. In this book, Mr. Middlebrook uses his solid formula for telling of the British raids, Lead-up, The Raid, Aftermath.
In the Lead-up sections, Mr. Middlebrook tells us about Peenemunde and Germany's rocket program, the British learning of the German rocket program (V2's, not the V1's) and their plans for the raid, and finally the Luftwaffe it's self (note: this raid saw the first operational use of Schrage Music [Slanting Music]; the vertical firing of cannons on night fighters). Interestingly, Mr. Middlebrook did not give a detailed breakdown of the RAF and it's aircraft and the Luftwaffe section was small compared to his other works.
In the Raid section, we get to read about the flight of the bombers to the target, their performance over Peenemunde, and their fights with the Luftwaffe. Of interest in this section is that for the RAF, Peenemunde was a small target and RAF was targeting three different sections, the workers facilities, the scientist facilities, and the test/work facilities. To support this operation, Bomber Command used a Master of Ceremonies (a bomber who's pilot provided comments and directions to the rest of the bomber stream on their performance over the target) and had one group (Number 5 Group) bomb using Time-and-Distance rather than traditionally following the Pathfinders. These sections of the book make strong use of stories from the survivors of the battle.
The final sections, the Aftermath, provides Mr. Middlebrook's analysis of the battle and it's results. In these sections, Mr. Middlebrook points out how the RAF never raided Peenemunde again, however the American's did raid the facility three times in 1944. Mr. Middlebrook further points out that the RAF probably should have requested that the Americans follow up the next day with a raid of their own on Peenemunde (this would have replaced the raid on Schweinfurt, interestingly, the Schweinfurt raid contained almost the same number of aircraft that raided Peenemunde in the Air Corps first raid there in 1944 and achieved good results).
The Peenemunde Raid is a very nicely written book. Yet once more, Mr. Middlebrook has delivered a solid book describing the battle between the RAF and the Luftwaffe over Germany. This book is not as strong as his books on Nuremburg or Hamburg, but much better than his book on Berlin (a good book covering a campaign vs. a battle). Because of this I'd call this book a solid 4 stars.