Bomber Boys. Patrick Bishop

      

       BOMBER BOYS

      FIGHTING BACK

      1940–1945

      PATRICK BISHOP

       Copyright

      HarperPress

      An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

      77–85 Fulham Palace Road,

      Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

      www.harpercollins.co.uk

      Patrick Bishop asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      Plans of Halifax and Lancaster bombers © Copyright The National Archives.

      Plans of Stirling, Mosquito and Wellington bombers

      © Crown Copyright RAF Museum

      Maps of Cologne and Berlin © Copyright Royal Geographical Society.

      Maps of Bomber Command Stations, Targets in Europe, Germany,

      and the Ruhr Valley by John Gilkes.

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      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

      Source ISBN: 9780007189861

      Ebook Edition © MARCH 2011 ISBN: 9780007280131

      Version: 2014-09-17

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

Copyright

       Dedication

Maps

Prologue: Perkins

Introduction

1 Learning the Hard Way

2 Coventrated

3 ‘To Fly and Fight’

4 Crewing Up

5 Dying in the Dark

6 Enter ‘Butch’

       7 The Feast of St Peter and St Paul

       8 The Reasons Why

       9 The Battle

       10 A Select Gang of Blokes’

       11 The Big City

       12 The Chop

       13 Crack Up

       14 Home Front

       15 Love in Uniform

       16 D-Day Diversion

       17 Tallboys and Tirpitz

       18 Götterdämmerung

       19 Forgetting

       Epilogue: Went the day well?

       Keep Reading

       Notes

       Bombers

       Index

       Acknowledgements

       About the Publisher

      To Peter, Margaret, Amelia

      and Daniel

       Maps

       Prologue: PERKINS

      In the early summer of 1961, sophisticated