Patrick Bishop looks at the lives & the extraordinary risks that the painfully young pilots of Bomber Command took during the air-offensive against Germany from 1940-1945. As featured on the BBC 1 documentary BOMBER BOYS presented by Ewan Mc Gregor. They came from every corner of Britain & its Empire. They were the best of their generation...heading for one of the worst tasks of WWII. Like RAF pilots the thousands of brave young men who joined Bomber Command took to the air to help Britain triumph in World War Two. But in the glow of victory the fighter pilots were lauded for their efforts while the Bomber Boys faded in national memory. Crucial in the heat of combat they were politically awkward afterwards. Yet with an average life expectancy shorter than that of soldiers on the Western front in WWI these men faced death injury & capture time & again to send bombs through the shrieking flak onto enemy territory. Bomber Boys is a tribute to their strength courage & heroism
- filling in the historical blanks & immortalising their memory.
...

In 1943 the RAF began a bombing campaign against Germany the like of which had never before been seen. Over the next twelve months tens of thousands of aircrews flew across the North Sea to drop their bombs on German cities. They were opposed not only by the full force of the Luftwaffe but by a nightmare of flak treacherously icy conditions & constant mechanical malfunction. Most of these crews never finished their tour of operations but were either shot down & killed or taken prisoner by an increasingly hostile enemy. This is the story of the everyday heroism of British bomber crews in the days when it was widely believed that the Allies could win the Second World War by bombing alone. Kevin Wilson has interviewed hundreds of former airmen about what their lives were like in 1943: the stomach-churning tension of flying repeatedly over hostile territory the terror at being shot down or captured & the peculiar mixture of guilt & pride at unleashing such devastation on Germany. ...

Lancaster pilot Victor Woods aircraft arrived too early over Gelsenkirchen when the target was shrouded in darkness & the Main Force miles behind. His bomber was suddenly struck with terrifying force by flak & turned upside-down. An engine was on fire the unconscious mid-upper gunner slumped over his turret was being sprayed with petrol & their bombload had been struck by shrapnel. Could Vic get his crew back to base safely? Find out in Mel Rolfes expertly researched & narrated book which records nineteen similarly exceptional stories as night after night young men went off on sorties knowing the unpalatable truth that they might not see another dawn. ...

Bomber Commands offensive against the cities of Germany was one of the epic campaigns of the Second World War. More than 56 000 British & Commonwealth aircrew & 600 000 Germans died in the course of the RAFs attempt to win the war by bombing. The struggle began in 1939 with a few score primitive Whitleys Hampdens & Wellingtons & ended six years later with 1 600 Lancasters Halifaxes & Mosquitoes razing whole cities in a single night. Max Hastings traced the developments of area bombing using a wealth of documents letters diaries & interviews with key surviving witnesses. Bomber Command" is his classic account of one of the most controversial struggles of the war." ...

55 573 aircrew of Bomber Command lost their lives during the Second World War yet no campaign medal was awarded & their bravery & sacrifice went largely unrecognized. On 28 June 2012 this was corrected with the dedication & unveiling of the Bomber Command Memorial in The Green Park London. The journey from the initial idea to the unveiling of the memorial was a long & complex one & ' The Bomber Command Memorial
- We Will Remember Them' tells the story of the campaign; locating a site obtaining permission raising the funds designing the memorial & the opening ceremony. The book also tells the remarkable story of Bomber Command from the viewpoint of those who took part & veterans reflect on the experiences they had & what the memorial means to them. 50% of all receipts go to the Bomber Command Memorial Fund registered charity.
...

This massive work provides a comprehensive insight to the experiences of Bomber Commands pilots & aircrew throughout World War Two. From the early wartime years when the RAFs first attempts to avenge Germanys onslaught were bedevilled by poor navigation & inaccurate bombing to the final winning onslaught that finally tamed Hitler in his Berlin lair these volumes trace the true experiences of the men who flew the bombers. Hundreds of first-hand accounts are punctuated by the authors background information that put each narrative into wartime perspective. Every aspect of Bomber Commands operational duties are covered; day & night bombing precision low-level strikes mass raids & operations throughout all wartime theatres. Contributions are from RAF personnel who flew the commands different aircraft from the early Blenheims & Stirlings to the later Lancasters & Mosquitoes. Each volume is full of accounts that tell of the camaraderie amongst the crews moments of sheer terror & the stoic humour that provided the critical bond. The five volumes of this work provide the most vivid & comprehensive work on the outstanding part played by RAF Bomber Command in their vital role in the destruction of the Third Reich. ...

This is the first volume of a five part work that provides a comprehensive insight to the experiences of Bomber Commands pilots & aircrew throughout World War Two. From the early wartime years when the RAFs first attempts to avenge Germanys onslaught were bedevilled by poor navigation & inaccurate bombing to the final winning onslaught that finally tamed Hitler in his Berlin lair these volumes trace the true experiences of the men who flew the bombers. Hundreds of first-hand accounts are complemented by the authors background information that put each narrative into wartime perspective. Every aspect of Bomber Commands operational duties are covered;day & night bombing precision low-level strikes mass raids & operations throughout all wartime theatres. This volume is full of accounts that tell of the camaraderie amongst the crews moments of sheer terror & the stoic humour that provided the critical bond. The five volumes of this work provide the most vivid & comprehensive work on the outstanding part played by RAF Bomber Command in their vital role in the destruction of the Third Reich. ...

This the fourth volume of a five part work that provides a comprehensive insight into all aspects of RAF Bomber Command in World War Two begins in the spring of 1944 with a completely new insight on the catastrophic raid on Nuremburg on the night of 30/31 March & follows with the disastrous attack on Mailly-le-Camp in May. Gradually the Allied Bomber Offensive began to bear fruit & in June 1944 the invasion of Normandy took place under an umbrella of almost total Allied air superiority. RAF Bomber Command was to play a huge part in what proved to be the final steps to ultimate victory returning to the mass raids on German cities by night & even mounting raids on the Reich by day. The author's well-tried formula of using background information interspersed with the crews' personal narrative takes you raid by raid through each tour of ops while carrying full bomb loads in sub-zero temperatures blighted by atrocious weather conditions & dogged by fear of fire death or serious injury or having to endure months if not years of miserable existence & near starvation behind the wire in notorious Po W camps. The path to peace was paved with the unmitigated slow ebbing of courage with an ever-present possibility of death unannounced from a prowling night fighter nondescript & unseen as night after incessant night shattered & ailing bombers could run out of luck to crash in some foreign field while other crews almost 'home'
- almost empty
- ran out of fuel & died horrible tortuous deaths in twisted & tangled wreckage. Not for them the glory that was accorded The ' Few' but as Winston Churchill said: ' Fighters are our salvation but the bombers alone provide the means of victory'.

...

Women of Britain your country needs you! Bombers & Mash tells the story of the Second World War on the domestic front. It takes us from the kitchen to the nursery showing how women managed without almost everything from potato peelers cosmetics & prams to food fuel transport
- & men. These women coped with rationing evacuation separation from families long hours of work in factories hospitals & on the l&. Through it all they kept the nation fed on ingeniously nutritious & economical meals
- hundreds of the best & some of the worst are included here. In print for over thirty years Bombers & Mash is moving fascinating & full of posters & images from the Second World War. It is both an illustrated social history & a cookery book offering a remarkable picture of the deprivation & drama of the womens war.

...

Andrea Hayes was one of the IRAs most deadly killers until a misplaced bomb ripped a group of passing kids apart & she left all that behind her. Now years later shes got a whole new life with a new family & her days of violence seem a distant memory. But then her daughter is kidnapped by persons unknown & she is blackmailed into building a huge explosive device for them
- target unknown...
...