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Above Us, The Stars: 10 Squadron Bomber Command – The Wireless Operator’s Story
Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2020
12 people are currently reading
29 people want to read
About the author
Jane Gulliford Lowes
5 books15 followersHello everyone!
Thank you for visiting my page. I write non-fiction books which read like novels and which bring the past to life!
I was born and grew up in County Durham, and I have a real passion for the people, places and history of North East England as well as the history of the Second World War. You can read more about me and my work at www.justcuriousjane.com.
My first book The Horsekeeper's Daughter was published in 2017. It tells the true story of one of the hundreds of women who left the mining villages of Northern England in the 1880s to travel alone to Australia, to start a new lives via the Single Female Migrant's Scheme.
My second, Above Us The Stars: 10 Sqn Bomber Command-The Wireless Operator's Story, was published in September 2020. This focuses on the experiences of a young Bomber Command aircrewman during World War 2, and of the the family he left behind in North East England. The book combines social history, military history and family memoir.
When I'm not writing, I'm usually giving talks and lectures or studying for my Masters Degree in Second World War Studies.
Thank you for visiting my page. I write non-fiction books which read like novels and which bring the past to life!
I was born and grew up in County Durham, and I have a real passion for the people, places and history of North East England as well as the history of the Second World War. You can read more about me and my work at www.justcuriousjane.com.
My first book The Horsekeeper's Daughter was published in 2017. It tells the true story of one of the hundreds of women who left the mining villages of Northern England in the 1880s to travel alone to Australia, to start a new lives via the Single Female Migrant's Scheme.
My second, Above Us The Stars: 10 Sqn Bomber Command-The Wireless Operator's Story, was published in September 2020. This focuses on the experiences of a young Bomber Command aircrewman during World War 2, and of the the family he left behind in North East England. The book combines social history, military history and family memoir.
When I'm not writing, I'm usually giving talks and lectures or studying for my Masters Degree in Second World War Studies.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
December 5, 2024
Picked this up on the strength of a good review, and hope I can provide the same. This is a very good memoire of World War II and the aftermath, specifically of one radio operator in the RAF bomber command.
This isn't an impersonal book - Jack Clyde is related to the author, and she tells his story perfectly. It starts with the town (and the coal mines), and like many towns on the English coast, the first bombs to fall. From there the focus is on the story of Jack and his push for 30 missions, along with his crewmates. The author also tells us about the targets, delivering a personal story about the victims on both sides of the battlefield.
I've read more than a few books about this war, these situations, and this is easily one of the best. Normally in a review I'd highlight one or two things that didn't work, but I can't think of much. I was surprised to see this with a 4.97 rating on goodreads, but having read it, my rating will only bring that total slightly higher.
Above Us, the Stars is not the author's first book, and I dearly hope it won't be her last. Looking forward to reading more!
This isn't an impersonal book - Jack Clyde is related to the author, and she tells his story perfectly. It starts with the town (and the coal mines), and like many towns on the English coast, the first bombs to fall. From there the focus is on the story of Jack and his push for 30 missions, along with his crewmates. The author also tells us about the targets, delivering a personal story about the victims on both sides of the battlefield.
I've read more than a few books about this war, these situations, and this is easily one of the best. Normally in a review I'd highlight one or two things that didn't work, but I can't think of much. I was surprised to see this with a 4.97 rating on goodreads, but having read it, my rating will only bring that total slightly higher.
Above Us, the Stars is not the author's first book, and I dearly hope it won't be her last. Looking forward to reading more!
May 11, 2021
The best book to get an inside picture of life as an ordinary member of a bomber crew in World War Two. Thoroughly researched, well written account of the horrors of the bombing campaign both in the air and on the ground. A fitting tribute to the men involved.
January 17, 2021
Excellent book. Wonderful mix of personal/family history, historical facts and personal insights. Very well researched and written to tell the somewhat overlooked emotional and psychological toll wrought upon the aircrew of Bomber Command during WW2. A nice balance of historical facts, technical details and the personal & family impacts of the campaign. Congrats Jane, terrific stuff.
January 24, 2022
An excellent and atypical WWII aviation history
Plenty of top-notch (and some not so top-notch) books have been about WWII aerial combat; autobiographies and second-hand sources biographies alike, fighters and bombers alike, American, RAF, Japanese, and Luftwaffe alike. The thing is, most of these writings have been told from the perspective of the pilots.
With her excellent book “Above Us, the Stars,” author and historian Jane Guilliford Lowes takes an atypical, outside-the-box approach, as its focus is on an RAF Bomber Command crew’s lowly humble enlisted wireless radio operator, a certain Jack Clyde (R.I.P. and God bless) of 10 Squadron, who also happens to be the author’s late granduncle.
Ms. Lowes, in addition to giving Big Picture background on the air war between Britain and Germany, takes us from Jack’s experiences as a teenager during the early years of WWII in the humble coal mining town of Seaham (closest major city is Sunderland) and how his ordeal and that of his family and fellow townsfolk eventually motivated him to volunteer for the war effort via the RAF, from there making the transition from wet-behind-the-ears trainee to battle-hardened crewman and NCO.
Battle-hardened, but certainly not glorious. Jack and his flightmates endure the terror of German fighter interceptors and flak (AAA fire), the grief of the loss of beloved comrades & brothers-in-arms (as the author points out, RAF Bomber
Command suffered a mind-numbing 44% KIA rate, “the highest attrition rate of any Allied unit in the Second World War”), and, eventually, the pangs of guilt over the many thousands of German civilians killed by Air Marshall Arthur “Bomber” Harris’s air raids (wartime enmities and the evil of Hitler’s regime notwithstanding, we’re still talking human beings here). All of those, of course, tacked onto the pangs of separation from loved ones back home that are endemic to any war.
And the author also describes the shameful manner in which the RAF brass treated what we now know as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), cruelly and cold-bloodedly branding it’s psychologically-spent airmen with the proverbial scarlet letter of the “Lack of Moral Fibre” (LMF) label. In order to avoid this stigma, and also in order to cope with all of the tragedies and terrors of their duties, Jack and his mates must put on an air of bravado and nonchalance (which carries over to Jack’s official flight logs).
But in addition to all of the tragedy, the book is also full of the camaraderie, triumphs, and humour and light-hearted moments that are also inherent to a band of battle brothers.
As a lifelong military history buff, son of a WWII veteran, and Air Force veteran (USAF in my case), “Above Us, the Stars” gets my highest recommendation. Bully for you, Jane!
Plenty of top-notch (and some not so top-notch) books have been about WWII aerial combat; autobiographies and second-hand sources biographies alike, fighters and bombers alike, American, RAF, Japanese, and Luftwaffe alike. The thing is, most of these writings have been told from the perspective of the pilots.
With her excellent book “Above Us, the Stars,” author and historian Jane Guilliford Lowes takes an atypical, outside-the-box approach, as its focus is on an RAF Bomber Command crew’s lowly humble enlisted wireless radio operator, a certain Jack Clyde (R.I.P. and God bless) of 10 Squadron, who also happens to be the author’s late granduncle.
Ms. Lowes, in addition to giving Big Picture background on the air war between Britain and Germany, takes us from Jack’s experiences as a teenager during the early years of WWII in the humble coal mining town of Seaham (closest major city is Sunderland) and how his ordeal and that of his family and fellow townsfolk eventually motivated him to volunteer for the war effort via the RAF, from there making the transition from wet-behind-the-ears trainee to battle-hardened crewman and NCO.
Battle-hardened, but certainly not glorious. Jack and his flightmates endure the terror of German fighter interceptors and flak (AAA fire), the grief of the loss of beloved comrades & brothers-in-arms (as the author points out, RAF Bomber
Command suffered a mind-numbing 44% KIA rate, “the highest attrition rate of any Allied unit in the Second World War”), and, eventually, the pangs of guilt over the many thousands of German civilians killed by Air Marshall Arthur “Bomber” Harris’s air raids (wartime enmities and the evil of Hitler’s regime notwithstanding, we’re still talking human beings here). All of those, of course, tacked onto the pangs of separation from loved ones back home that are endemic to any war.
And the author also describes the shameful manner in which the RAF brass treated what we now know as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), cruelly and cold-bloodedly branding it’s psychologically-spent airmen with the proverbial scarlet letter of the “Lack of Moral Fibre” (LMF) label. In order to avoid this stigma, and also in order to cope with all of the tragedies and terrors of their duties, Jack and his mates must put on an air of bravado and nonchalance (which carries over to Jack’s official flight logs).
But in addition to all of the tragedy, the book is also full of the camaraderie, triumphs, and humour and light-hearted moments that are also inherent to a band of battle brothers.
As a lifelong military history buff, son of a WWII veteran, and Air Force veteran (USAF in my case), “Above Us, the Stars” gets my highest recommendation. Bully for you, Jane!
October 7, 2020
Can you imagine the tension of flying an operation over enemy territory during the Second World War? Hundreds of miles from home, under attack from the ground and in the air. Knowing the chance of your return was unbearably low. Just to get the job done today and await the next terrifying mission tomorrow. And if you survive, how would you manage your grief as you pals fail to return from a mission?
Jane Gulliford Lowes takes the reader on an emotion journey with a Halifax bomber crew, with whom you grow to care for deeply. Sharing their hopes and fears during the war, we are given an insight to the experiences of their families and friends on the home front and the inevitable damage inflicted on German population by the accounts of the survivors.
As the book progresses, we witness the eventual change that all those who have experience combat go though, never fully returning to the person they were before. With reflection on the events of the past and some twists that author’s research uncovers in more recent times, we get a glimpse of how the crew felt and why many did not want to share their experiences with others.
After reading the book I have formed new perspective on the bomber command campaign in the war and have been enthused to find out more about these brave but silent heroes.
A first class read.
Jane Gulliford Lowes takes the reader on an emotion journey with a Halifax bomber crew, with whom you grow to care for deeply. Sharing their hopes and fears during the war, we are given an insight to the experiences of their families and friends on the home front and the inevitable damage inflicted on German population by the accounts of the survivors.
As the book progresses, we witness the eventual change that all those who have experience combat go though, never fully returning to the person they were before. With reflection on the events of the past and some twists that author’s research uncovers in more recent times, we get a glimpse of how the crew felt and why many did not want to share their experiences with others.
After reading the book I have formed new perspective on the bomber command campaign in the war and have been enthused to find out more about these brave but silent heroes.
A first class read.
October 22, 2020
I don't think my review will completely do this book justice.
I've read hundreds of world war 2 accounts and this has to be one of the finest.
The author humbly states that she is not historian but yet provides a great deal of well researched information about the wars progression, which any reputable historian would be proud of.
The best thing is, this isn't a history book, per say. Its a book about a bomber command wireless operator from the small town of Seaham. The brilliance of this book is that not only does it tell you of the heroic actions of jack the wireless operator but his whole crew of seven and others who come and go. As well as a brilliant insight into their lives on a bomber command airbase,
The book is one you will struggle to put down and you'll need to read that little bit more before you can.
Admittedly I haven't completely finished this book. I don't want the story to end. This book is a must for anyone with a interest in world war 2.
I've read hundreds of world war 2 accounts and this has to be one of the finest.
The author humbly states that she is not historian but yet provides a great deal of well researched information about the wars progression, which any reputable historian would be proud of.
The best thing is, this isn't a history book, per say. Its a book about a bomber command wireless operator from the small town of Seaham. The brilliance of this book is that not only does it tell you of the heroic actions of jack the wireless operator but his whole crew of seven and others who come and go. As well as a brilliant insight into their lives on a bomber command airbase,
The book is one you will struggle to put down and you'll need to read that little bit more before you can.
Admittedly I haven't completely finished this book. I don't want the story to end. This book is a must for anyone with a interest in world war 2.
September 23, 2021
I originally got this because Jack Clyde came from fairly near where I live. It was a pleasant surprise to find that this was different from the usual war memoir. The tale has 3 (maybe 4) parallel stories. There is Jack's story as he joins the RAF and becomes a wireless operator in Halifax bombers; the general story of the war; the story of the home front at Seaham Harbour, which suffered from a number of deadly bombings; and finally we briefly cover the story of Jack's brother-in-law, Jim Groark, who served with the Royal Engineers in the Italy.
The story is well told and is easy to follow whether or not you are knowledgeable about the 2nd World War. Recommended
The story is well told and is easy to follow whether or not you are knowledgeable about the 2nd World War. Recommended
February 12, 2021
Absolutely brilliant.
So moving.
A must read.
So moving.
A must read.
February 5, 2022
A truly wonderful book. I found it when I was researching the history of WW2 in the North East of England. Its a remarkable book. Its a documentary record and as readable as a novel. It starts with a Luftwaffe raid on a pit village about 5 or 6 miles from where I grew up. I realised how difficult life must have been for my mother rushing to the Anderson shelter with a 3 year old little boy. The author's description of life in a Halifax bomber over Germany is horrific, she must have interviewed many Bomber Command survivors to attain her insight. If want an insight into the aerial bombardment on Germany and its effects on Germany and the RAF personnel I can thoroughly recommend it
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 17, 2025
A brilliantly written book that follows Wireless Operator Sgt Jack Clyde through his wartime service in Bomber Command. The author also includes information about his family back home and what was happening to them. I thought this might detract from the main story but it actually enhances it. Clyde was the authors Great Uncle and is full of love and respect for him. My Dad was an Air Gunner also in Bomber Command so a lot of the things in the book my Dad would also have gone through. It is a super book to the brave Aircrews of the RAF. Recommended!
April 16, 2023
The more I read about WW2, the more I realised what a cataclysmic event it had been. Our current society has been shaped by it.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews