Автор: Patrick Bishop
Година: 2008 г.
Страници: 445
Език: Английски
Състояние: Много добро
Забележка: Неизползвана книга - леко захабен външен вид.
Издателство: HarperPerennial
Град на издаване: London
Наличност: 1 бр.
Тегло (гр. ): 364
Ширина (мм): 130
Височина (мм): 200
Дебелина (мм): 30
Корици: Меки

Patrick Bishop looks at the lives and the extraordinary risks that the painfully young pilots of Bomber Command took during the air-offensive against Germany from 1940-1945. As featured on the BBC 1 documentary BOMBER BOYS, presented by Ewan McGregor.

They came from every corner of Britain and its Empire. They were the best of their generation... heading for one of the worst tasks of WWII. Like RAF pilots, the thousands of brave young men who joined Bomber Command took to the air to help Britain triumph in World War Two. But in the glow of victory, the fighter pilots were lauded for their efforts while the Bomber Boys faded in national memory. Crucial in the heat of combat, they were politically awkward afterwards. Yet with an average life expectancy shorter than that of soldiers on the Western front in WWI, these men faced death, injury and capture time and again to send bombs through the shrieking flak onto enemy territory.

'Bomber Boys' is a tribute to their strength, courage and heroism - filling in the historical blanks and immortalising their memory.

*

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations ix
Maps xiii
Prologue: Perkins XXV
Introduction xxix

1 Learning the Hard Way 1
2 Coventrated 19
3 To Fly and Fight' 33
4 Crewing Up 47
5 Dying in the Dark 6?
6 Enter 'Butch' 86
7 The Feast of St Peter and St Paul 113
8 The Reasons Why 130
9 The Battle 154
10 'A Select Gang of Blokes' 182
11 The Big City 199
12 The Chop 219
13 Crack Up 238
14 Home Front 256
15 Love in Uniform 280
16 D-Day Diversion 307
17 Tallboys and Tirpitz 326
18 Götterdämmerung 342
19 Forgetting 366

Epilogue: Went the day well? 391
Notes 397
Bombers 405
Acknowledgments 417
Index 419