22,000Lb Grand Slam

[Peter Laidler]

An old time friend of mine, the late Fl/Lt Leslie Barham, later a Sq Ldr was a wartime Wellington and later Lancaster bomber pilot. I often spoke to him while browsing through his flying log that read like an atlas of Western Europe - with his favoured targets of Duisburg, Essen, Wuppertal and Dusseldorf - whether he had any qualms or reservations about his actions or whether his regular crew (he had several crewman changes of course) did. Better not say his exact words but he had absolutely none...........

Berlin was a feared trip but a trip to the industrial heart was said to be more lucrative for its sheer effect on industry