How can we really know what it was like to fly with Bomber Command in World War Two? How can we share the fear at take-off into unknown dangers, the intensity of anticipation flying through flak-ridden skies, the gut-wrenching dread of the fighter which might be awaiting beyond the next cloud, the awesome drama of releasing a bomb load over the designated dropping zone, the euphoria of success and the necessary concentration on the run for home, and the blessed relief of a safe landing at home base...or of the wretched failure felt when shot down, the silence at the thought of a crash-landing and capture, the ultimate emotion of seeing friends die in the sky?
The answer is that we talk to the few who undertook these flights, these nightmare rides into enemy territory. This is what Mel Rolfe has done for this collection of twenty accounts of RAF Bomber Command at work.
The result is an empathetic story of real war - a crippled Lancaster hurtling to the ground, a rear gunner trapped in his turret, a crash-landed crew adrift in the North Sea for nine days, a survivor of a mid-air explosion, a bomb-aimer flying a Lancaster after his pilot had been injured, a 1000lb bomb dropping through a bomber's wing creating a hole the size of a kitchen table...and the crazy loss of an aircraft on a 'viewing day-out' for ground crew over Germany after the war was won.
The amazing but true descriptions of the bomber aircraft in action puts the reader on board with these most gallant of airman - these men who spent their war 'looking into hell'.