Should be compulsory reading!
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This book is the best book I have read so far this year.
It describes the strategic air war against Germany by the RAF in the Second World War. That description makes it sound maybe a bit dry and academic but it is far from being either of those things! It tells the story of this chapter in the war from a very human point of view. For example, there are chapters describing the airmen's training, lives at their bases, their motivation, how they dealt with the fear of being killed whilst carrying out operation over Europe at night and many other highly interesting aspects of the lives of these remarkable men.
The book also describes the strategy behind the bombing of Germany, from the beginning to the end of the war and gives a good insight into the main commanders - people such as Charles Portal and Bomber Harris.
The story told in these pages is often very moving and I once I had finished the book I thought about it for a long time afterwards, quite unlike other books I have read. I felt great sympathy for all the men of Bomber Command, which has never had the vital role it played in World War II properly publicly acknowledged. I hope that this book will cause many to ask why this is so and perhaps focus efforts to have a permanent memorial specific to these men built, and to have this done before the last of them die and they recede from living memory.
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A moving but balanced account.
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Bomber Boys brought tears to my eyes. It is a movingly written record and assessment of the horrors that aircrew endured during World War II. My father - a navigator in a 44 Squadron Lancaster - had told me on many occasions about his war service and I understood something of the difficulties. However, it was only by reading this book that one can put into perspective the terrible loss, the low chances of survival as well as the physical and mental strain of missions.
Nor does the book shirk from the real moral ambiguities of the campaign and follows through to officialdom's post-war embarrassment of their role. The book fills in many of the gaps that I did not appreciate when talking to my father and allows me now to understand how truly heroic his and his fellow aircrewmen's contribution was. I only wish that my father could have survived a couple more years to have enjoyed reading it.
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The truth behind the Dam Busters' legend
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It's been about five years since I read Bishop's Fighter Boys and since I heard he was writing Bomber Boys I've been eagerly awaiting its release. It has lived up to and surpassed my expectations. It is exactly as a history book should be: a harmonious marriage of personal stories and a view of the bigger picture, which in this case is the progress of the bombing campaign against Nazi Germany. It's only upon reading this that I discovered how little I knew about Bomber Command and the Second World War! It's shocking, really, to think that they might not have received as much recognition as their efforts deserved. Buy this book and be amazed!
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Enormous cost
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As the very proud son of a Lancaster Bomber Flight Engineer I have read many books on Bomber Command and this ranks as one of the best.It shows the undoubted bravery of the crews whilst questioning the need for mass bombing particularly towards the end of the war.It is a great reminder to those who have forgotten and to those who never realised what a sacrifice 55,000 brave young men gave for us all.
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Old Lags of Bomber Command
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As an ex Bomber Boy this book is first class and shows the modern youth how we responded to the threat of Nazi domination and despite the denigration of our efforts by modern 'hindsight' historians, most young people I have met do not look upon us as 'terrorists'. I for one have faith in our 21st century young men that they would respond as we did in 1943/45.
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