Fighter and Bomber Squadrons at War Express Levering

This title first published by Ian Allen as 2 seperate volumes:- Fighter Squadron at war- Bomber Squadron at warThe highly successful “At War” series has mainly concentrated on specific aircraft types – what they were like to fly, maintain or fight. In the two separate sections of Fighter and Bomber Squadrons at War Andrew Brookes attempts to delve deeper into the atmosphere of particular chosen units through the war years, so as to evoke the life of a squadron. This book, therefore, is not so much a history of machinery as an attempt to underline the human dimension of the Second World War – the men and women who maintained and flew the planes, who in the process made up a fine fighting unit. In order to evoke what it was like to serve in the RAF in a combat squadron between 1939 and 1945, Squadron Leader Brookes has chosen units that had a particularly exciting record, but he avoids the “official history” approach. Looking into the kaleidoscope of wartime life, through the medium of reports, letters, diaries and mementoes that members of the squadrons left behind, we get a picture of how they saw themselves, and how others saw them. The words are theirs, the emphasis is theirs, and if this reinforces some points rather than others, it is only a measure of what the squadron personnel regarded as important and, by implication, what they deemed of less consequence. Fighter and Bomber Squadrons at War should therefore be regarded as a scrapbook for an age, and as such attempts to portray how men and women in RAF uniform worked and played, fought and died. This is the story of a perfectly ordinary generation which was plucked from studies and civilian jobs to take part in a conflict which was not of its making, which was often beyond its understanding and which promised not ripe old age, but rather death on the morrow. This book contains many firsthand combat accounts, and photographs published for the first time. It is respectfully dedicated to everyone who served in the RAF, and particularly to those who fought for a peace they never lived to enjoy.