Content provided in partnership with
Bomber Boys: Fighting Back 1940-1945
Contemporary Review, Spring, 2008
Bomber Boys: Fighting Back 1940-1945. Patrick Bishop. HarperPress. [pounds sterling]20.00. xli + 429 pages. ISBN 978-0-00-718986-1. This history, devoted to the pilots who flew in Bomber Command, is the sequel to the author's Fighter Boys which told the story of the pilots of the Spitfires and Hurricanes.
- Most Popular Articles in News
- The Ten Best Laptop bags
- Tata plans cheapest-ever car for Indian market
- GLOBALIZATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT OF THE THIRD WORLD
- Corn is good for you; Corn is not only a tasty treat, but also a cereal that ...
- THE 50 BEST STYLISH HANDBAGS TO CARRY
- More »
While the former pilots were and are universally praised, those in Bomber Command have had a mixed, and often, hostile treatment both during the war and later. Mr Bishop reminds readers that of 125,000 men who flew the bombers, 55,000 were killed. His aim is to treat these men's work objectively and therefore fairly and to rescue them from the current opprobrium attached in some circles to British bombing of German sites. He uses a wide variety of archive material combined with recollections of survivors to reconstruct not just the work of Bomber Command but the daily lives of the crews. He has given us a balanced portrait and if it errs on the side of the bombers, it also avoids the wisdom given by hindsight. The debate will carry on but at least we have now heard the voice of those who actually did the flying. (T.B.)
COPYRIGHT 2008 Contemporary Review Company Ltd.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
