"No Moon Tonight"

[CINDERS]

Another addition to my library been after a copy for a long while, have just finished it, story is about an Australian in a group of 20 souls who trained together in Canada, then came to Bomber Command to take on the might of Hitler.
Starting on Wimpy's as a Nav then to Halifax's (Which to the authors relief could not be replaced fast enough) finally to the venerable Lancaster which he finished his tour of thirty.

It does not go into aerial combats and planes getting shot to sh*t though targets are mentioned there are no action reports they were almost accused of LMF having turned back after their port outer caught fire on the way to the target, what it does is describe very well the emotions they suffered day in day out faced with over all appalling losses sometimes 12 - 16+ crews or more from a mission and how they dealt with it.
Some they did not know just they were there then they weren't, but it portrays how hard it hit home when they lost a friend.
How it felt to be on the 30th mission when so many of his friends had perished on the 29th mission, why others came back to tours to complete 45-70+ missions.

They were flesh and blood with feelings like us all just wanting to live life, some expressed their dissent at inflicting casualties onto the civilians they knew they would win but it disgusted some.
And all in all the pitiful few who were left out of that 20 when he finished his tour which amounted to 4 of them still alive after 30 missions though 2 were still getting to the 30.

This is not the script of that farcical movie made in WWII "No Moon Tonight" which portrayed bomber commands "Wimpy" doing pin point accuracy in night bombing.
It was lucky if they got their bomb loads within 5 miles of a target yet that Wimpy gets it bang on through 8/10 cloud at night what a joke.....
But they had to give the public something to believe in that the Nazis were copping a pasting and Bomber Command crews were doing their bit to help win the war, if only they knew the truth of what went on and just how much the men suffered mentally and the losses faced every day in keeping the fight up.

The book is a 1st H/C as I like to get and not a well known book or title but still hard to come by down here at least in H/C. Cheers

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