"The Machine Gunners" by Robert Westall

[Multimetal]

This was probably the book that started my lifelong obsession with WW2 aircraft and aviation history! It's a young adult novel set around the BOB and the Blitz, from the perspective of a group of young kids who end up finding and recovering the dorsal MG from a shot-down HE-111. I first read it in the late '80s when I was about 11, it's a somewhat dark but realistic story that really touches on what it would have been like to see the Blitz from a kid's perspective, innocence mixed with the pure emotions that come from being a kid. I really highly recommend it to anyone with kids from 10-15 or so, and you'll probably want to read it yourself!

 

[looney]

There is a movie about it also... Don't remember much of the story though, saw it way to long ago.