Men of Air: The Doomed Youth of Bomber Command

by Kevin Wilson

There were many ways for a combat crew to die during Bomber Command's war of 1944. Over German territory, bursts of heavy flak could tear the wings from their planes in a split second. Flaming bullets from German fighter planes could explode their fuel tanks, cut their oxygen supplies, destroy their engines. In the spring of that year, thousands of young men were shot, blown up, or thrown from their planes five miles above the earth; and even those who returned faced the subtler dangers of ice and fog as they tried to land their battered aircraft back home.

Genres: History, World War II, Military Fiction, Aviation, Nonfiction, Military History, War

448 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 4, 2007

About the author

Kevin Wilson has spent most of his working life as a staff journalist on British national newspapers, including the Daily Mail and latterly the Daily and Sunday Express. He is married with three grown-up sons and a daughter.

Reviews

[Brian]

Did not finish. (I don’t rate books I don’t complete.)

I read 50 painful pages of this text, and I still don’t see the organization or structure. There seems to be no thesis. It’s mostly, “Here is what happened. Then this is what happened”, and so on.
Primary sources are plopped in with no context.
There is so much technical and specialized language used, with no explanations, that most of the time I had no idea what was going on.
I tried but I could not get in to this book. There must be better out there about this subject.

[Stuart Harland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Superb follow on from Bomber Boys. Harrowing first hand accounts from those that flew. The losses are just harrowing. Highly recommended.

[Peter Goodman · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Air Men: the courage and sacrifice of Bomber Command in World War II,” by Kevin Wilson (Pegasus, 2019). The British experience. I’ve read and watched so much about the Eighth Air Force and the B-17, etc. All I really knew about the RAF bombing campaign is that they took too many casualties at first and so chose to bomb only at night; that they flew in a “bomber stream,” that they rarely came close to the target, that Bomber Harris intended to kill a lot of civilians from the first, and that the British planes could carry a much bigger payload. Which is not nothing. But here Wilson, over almost 400 pages, provides a gritty, detailed, well-written account of what the aircrews experienced, starting during the Battle of Berlin in January, 1944, through to the end of the war. He cites dozens of stories, from his own interviews, debriefings, official accounts, loads of other books. What emerges is almost numbing in its detail---I could not keep track of the individual voices---and almost, but not quite, numbing in the horror it describes. These young men---18,19, 20 most of them---took off night after night knowing that they were more likely to be killed than not. They went again and again and again. Their tours were extended. Some suffered from what was officially called LMF---Lack of Moral Fiber: shell shock, PTSD, whatever the current word is, breaking under the constant, unrelenting fear. Because they were flying at night, what they saw was spectacularly deadly: flying tracers, falling flares, the growing flame as a plane was hit, or exploded, or fell tens of thousands of feet to become another torch on the ground. And they saw that a lot: missions where 30, 40, 50, 60 planes were shot down. Or crashed on takeoff or landing. Or collided with each other. How phlegmatic these young men seem, rarely railing against the terror, just going about their jobs. Very British, indeed. My main difficulty with the book is that Wilson assumes a bit too much. From what I gather, the squadrons took off and flew individually—not in formation. When they approached the target, there were not only Pathfinder aircraft who were supposed to lead the way and mark the space with flares, and various radio and radar aids, but “master bombers,” who circled over the target and told each individual crew when to go in. I get an image of a sky full of circling planes, fighting off German night-fighters, dodging flak, and waiting for the command to actually fly over and drop their bombs. That seems far more dangerous and nerve-wracking than flying in huge formations, supporting one another with their guns, dropping the bombs simultaneously on command, and then getting the hell out. Flor defense against night-fighters they used a maneuver called a “corkscrew”---apparently throwing the plane into controlled, spinning dives and climbs to throw the fighters off—it was nighttime and the Germans had to work to find the planes again. The Americans didn’t try to evade until after dropping their bombs: they had to fly straight and true, and maintain their formations. The British main weapons were Lancasters and Halifax IIIs. Earlier models of Halifax couldn’t reach the right altitude, and were shot down in droves. One reason the British flew at night, said Harris, is that they were not well armed: light .303 machine guns and very few of them. They could not defend themselves as well as the B-17s and 24s. But they had a huge range, and regularly carried bombs of 4,000 pounds, and occasionally the 12-ton Tallboys to smash through the thick cement rooves of the submarine pens. The American bombs were rarely more than 500 pounds. Wilson found some surviving Luftwaffe pilots, and dug into what they did. The Germans were able to track the bomber streams with fair accuracy, and vector swarms of Me-109s, 110s, 210s, and Focke-Wulfes right into the stream, where they harassed and tormented and destroyed the bombers. Some pilots shot down perhaps seven in a single mission. One deadly weapon they had was Shrage Musik (shaky, off-tune music): cannon mounted facing upward, so that the fighter attacked from below. The British planes did not have ventral guns, like the American ball turret, and they could not see what was happening. Often, the first they knew about it was when their plane began to burn. The British higher command told the crews that these were from ground fire. Wilson spends some time with Harris, who refused to waver from his course of airborne devastation, even when it did not produce the resultant end to the war he had predicted. He fought hard to prevents his planes being used to support D-Day. He lost that fight, and Bomber Command was very effective in helping to destroy the French rail networks and sealing off the beachhead against reinforcement and resupply. He talks about the Great Escape, the travails of survivors trying to evade the Germans, the value of the Resistance in sheltering and helping the flyers to survive and escape capture. He describes how awestruck the flyers were when they saw the immense armada that carried the invaders. I wish there were some diagrams of the planes themselves, and some better explanation of the tactics they used. Still and all, a very informative book.

http://pegasusbooks.com/books/men-of-...

[Leonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lengthy read. I was slowed by all the British terms that American bomber crews didn't use. I learned a lot about the "other" bomber command that paralleled the American bombers. I didn't realize the losses to German night fighters were so high. Also the British Braintrust were certainly ignorant of the high cost of being so predictable, like choosing the same route in to a target and the same way out. This enabled the German night fighters to land and refuel and rearm then attack the bomber stream on its way home.

I felt a lot of the survivor's stories were told several times using British slang, for want of a better term. Good stuff, but it never "grabbed" me.

[Ivan Rees · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible story of bravey,and absolute endurance. Young men who couldn't even drive a car,was responsible for the lives of all those on board the bombers they flew.We should always remember these brave men who went out night after night to bomb targets with flak,search lights and night fighers.Lest we forget.

[Mark Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book with stories from those who were there.

[Leo Mccarthy · Rating 2 out of 5]

so disjointed a narrative that made it unreadable. disappointing.

[Iain · Rating 3 out of 5]

BOMBER COMMAND Takes off in early 1944. They had been flying raids over occupied Europe since the begining of the War in 1939, with woeful results. The allied high command wanted results! Results what ever the cost!The man to bring the RAF to Germany was ACM Sir Arthur Harris of Bomber command. Some likened him to General Haig from a previous war. But the allies had a mandate. To Strangle Germany's resources so they no longer had the capacity to continue the war.
What I did'nt realise:
*The losses in aircrew and heavy bombers during the campaign.
*The organisation, tecnology and tenaciousness of Germany's Night fighter system.
*The delvelopment of improved bombing accuracy from 1943-on Using systems such as GEE, OBOE,H2S. The beginning of truly electronic warfare and deception.
This is not a book about taking off,bomb target, get shot down,caputured,escape and back home in time for tea and medals!
Iain

[Mark Iliff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a bit Hieronymus Bosch: long on detail, short on context.

Most of the pages rehearse a litany of RAF Bomber Command missions against Germany and occupied France, many of which incurred heavy losses, during the last full year of WWII. The individual fates of a couple of hundred airmen described here are harrowing enough, but when you reflect that the Bomber Command death toll for the whole war was a staggering 55,000 the courage and sacrifice come into sharp focus. In that respect this is a powerful, illuminating but not particularly enjoyable read.

Parallel events during the same period are sketched in briefly and the basics of Bomber Command not at all. If you don’t know the 7 crew roles of an Avro Lancaster or the hierarchy of the RAF there is no help here. You can resort to the glossary for help on some of the terms, but coverage is patchy.

I’m glad I read it, but it involved rather more web searches than a book ought to.

[Robert Hepple · Rating 4 out of 5]

Men of Air, first published in 2007, tells the story of the RAF Bomber Command missions of 1944. It does so through numerous anecdotes by those concerned, including a few from Luftwaffe night-fighter crew. These anecdotes seem well chosen, with only a few that seem to have come from individuals who were either muddled or just embellished the truth a little. These anecdotes are set in context by the authors surrounding text of course, and in some instances he goes a little over the top with bombastic prose. Surprisingly, he devotes an entire chapter to the events of 'The Great Escape' on the slim pretext that some of the escapees were Bomber Command aircrew and that it took place on the night of the last raid in the 'Battle of Berlin' attacks - the result is a chapter the just seems out of place. Nevertheless, very enjoyable and informative.

[Tin Wee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good account of the bomber war over Europe from the survivors themselves, telling of the pre-mission tensions, the horrors of suddenly finding yourself in an out of control aircraft, watching crew of other craft trapped in sections falling out of the sky. Even in the unlikely event they manage to bail out, they still faced drowning in the sea, bad landings, hostile populations that string them up on lamp posts, etc. Not as gripping a read as other war accounts, but still a fairly good read. What irritated me was the rather poor typesetting- spaces that break up words are found throughout the book, making for a very distracting read.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A poignant and often disturbing view of Bomber Command from a rated author. Having read Bomber Boys sometime back, this book was almost devoured while undertaking dialysis sessions (almost bombing campaigns by themselves) and it turned out to be a worthwhile and interesting journey.
Mr Wilson definitely puts the reader into where the story needs to be and should be loudly applauded for his hard work.