Tail Gunner (Airlife Classics)

by Chan Chandler (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2002

  $5.69

  By the close of World War II, Flight Lieutenant Chan Chandler had flown a remarkable 98 missions, 65 of them with No 49 Squadron and 28 with the famous Dambuster Squadron, No 617. In addition he flew five trips with No 1 Photo FU. His career started early in the war, flying the twin-engined Handley Page Hampden, an aircraft that did not boast any power-operated gun turrets and which was particularly vulnerable in the presence of night-fighters. Later, he moved into the lonely end of the venerable Avro Lancaster. In that aeroplane the tail turret was power driven and boasted four .303in (7.7mm) guns. Chandler describes in vivid detail the experience of the remote tail gunner's position, what it was like to be cramped into a perspex cocoon for seven hours, your only link with the crew via RT. This is a vivid recollection of life with Bomber Command and, more significantly, life with 617 Squadron under Leonard Cheshire, VC.