Victor Boys: True Stories from Forty Memorable Years of the Last V Bomber

by Tony Blackman

The Handley Page Victor was the third of the three V Bombers and the most long lasting, serving in the RAF until 1993, and still doing invaluable service in the first Iraq war. Moreover, in 1982 it was only the Victor tanker fleet based on Ascension Island that made possible the Vulcan Black Buck bombing of Port Stanley airfield and the long-range reconnaissance of Argentina by Nimrods.

Victor Boys tells the story of all the great things that were achieved, recounted first hand by the operators themselves, aircrew and ground crew. Starting with accounts by test pilot Johnny Allam, who undertook the major development of the aircraft, through its work as a nuclear bomber during the cold war, testing Blue Steel in Australia, to its superb performance during the Falklands war and later as a first class air-to-air refueling tanker and vital support tool for fighters and other aircraft.

Published to coincide with the Victor’s 60th anniversary, the gripping text is superbly illustrated with photographs from the operators themselves, never released before.

Genres: Aviation, History, Nonfiction, Military Fiction, Military History

192 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2012

Reviews

[Robert Hepple · Rating 4 out of 5]

First published in 2012, 'Victor Boys' is another in the 'Boys' series of aviation books. In this volume, stories/anecdotes about the Victor are told, arranged into chapters covering different stages of the development and operational history of the Victor. The author and the contributors do get a little carried away at times, but the quality of the anecdotes and the passion of the contributors about the subject are commendable. Supporting pics are included, comprising various monochrome images mingled in among the text as well as some great colour images arranged in three sections of colour plates. The pics are okay, but the captioning is often indifferent.

[Stephen Pearson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read quite a few of his books, this was insightful as always, exploring the development, test stages, incidents, deployment and adaptation from a nuclear bomber into its famous role as a tanker.

Was especially good to read about the Black Buck raid(s) from the perspective of the refuellers rather than the Vulcan.

Contained a large variety of first hand accounts from those who served on the amazing Victor… some more exciting than others obviously.

[Roy Szweda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another tome in the excellent "Boys" series from Grubb Street. I read the hardback and found it a worthwhile addition to the others I had read on the Bucc and Hunter. Those two had a similar format, one person per chapter but this book is structured differently. Each chapter covers a specific stage of the evolution of the Victor in RAF service (it was not exported). Within each of those a number of writers make contributions as to their experiences of the aircraft's behaviour and idiosyncrasies. This makes for a fascinating read. Plus, of course, you could easily dip in here and there but I read it from start to finish in about a fortnight.
If I had one comment it would have to be on the font size. Given the age of the likely readership maybe it could have gone up a point or two. That is, I suppose, the converse of packing in so much information. Maybe the Kindle version might have helped ease the eye strain.
I learned a lot from this book that was either unclear to me or not in other books. I look forward to a similar experience with volume 2. By they way, look for the author's website for some of the stuff he had to leave out.

[Wilde Sky · Rating 3 out of 5]

The history of an RAF bomber / refuelling aircraft from inception to decommissioning is described in this book.

Interesting history of a British aircraft which I must admit I had never heard of.