Hotntot
Senior Airman
Reading this at the moment and it's turning out to be a thoroughly recommendable read. Lots of RAF and Eighth Air Force personal accounts. Some of the stories are quite remarkable and I'm certainly finding out what it was like to be flying in bombers.
I'm making my way through the pages with the thought of my uncle, a second pilot in a Whitley MkV, who was one of those who didn't come back (shot down over Holland by a BF110 night fighter on his way back from a mission to bomb the Scharnhorst at Wilhelmshaven after its 'Channel Dash' with another Capital ship, the Gneisenau. He'd been a soldier at Dunkirk who, once back in England, swapped to the RAF thinking he could do more for the war effort as a flyer. Unfortunately, it was his maiden voyage so his tour of duty was as short as it could get. Only the navigator got out).
Interesting too to learn of the differences in tactics and treatment of the flyers by senior staff between the USAAF and the RAF and the arguments that brewed over 'Butcher' Harris's approach to strategic bombing.