Aircrew (Cassell Military Paperbacks)

More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 208
Edition: First Edition
Publisher: Phoenix
Published: 03 Aug 2000
ISBN 10: 0304355410
ISBN 13: 9780304355419
Book Overview: During the Second World War Bruce Lewis flew in thirty-six raids over Germany in Lancasters of a Special Duty squadron. In this book he tells the story of the air crews of RAF Bomber Command and the Eighth American Air Force, recording the very human feelings that made operational flying the way it was. Not for them the glorious all-or-nothing exhilaration of the Battle of Britain pilots - rather, the slow dwindling of courage as mission followed mission, the long, freezing, ear-shattering journey to the target, the bursting flak, the prowling night fighters; then, if they were lucky, the long haul home, sometimes nursing a battered, barely flyable machine, often perilously short of fuel. Bruce Lewis, in his own words and in the words of fellow survivors both American and British, vividly recreates this strangely heightened life to provide a unique picture of the responsibilities and stresses of each member of the bomber crew at different stages of the war.