Masters of the Air (Band of Biggles)

[A Hat Like That]

Definitely one bit when they go "they're 110s" and a bunch of single engined fighters fly past.

Anyway, I liked it on the surface, its clearly cut down from a bigger vision, and its nowhere near the greats of the genre.

Making my mates watch Generation Kill next.

[Camp Tramp]

Definitely one bit when they go "they're 110s" and a bunch of single engined fighters fly past.

Anyway, I liked it on the surface, its clearly cut down from a bigger vision, and its nowhere near the greats of the genre.

Making my mates watch Generation Kill next.

Now that is a good show.

[Pavlov`s Dog`s Dad`s Dead]

*gilbertharding mentions Bomber*

Have you read Len Deighton's Bomber? I wonder if they could have made a miniseries based on that?

I read a couple of books by Mel Rolfe with titles like Flying Into Hell that were just 20 stories each of mad, terrible things that happened to various crews on bombing raids. All really gripping. Saying the raids were all the same is a bit reductive, they went wrong in a wide variety of ways.

Very grateful for the recommendations, both of you, thanks. Deighton is clearly a more polished writer than Rolfe, although some of his decisions veer too far into cliche: the squadron group captain's obsession with cricket, for one, or the senior officer who

Spoiler alert

survives the final flight of his second tour, only to be killed in a motorbike accident that same night

[close]

. Overall, though, it was a gripping read. I am especially struck that Deighton clearly gained access to lots of veterans from both sides. I'll be honest, going in, I was expecting a Commando comic/Boy's Own mash-up of derring-do, so the amount of cynicism if not unalloyed disgust expressed by the bomber crews at what they were being asked to do came as something of a surprise.

In contrast, the Rolfe book I read - "Bomber Boys" - was considerably less-polished, but if anything that gave it greater heft: it conveyed what purported to be real experiences in a convincing manner. I remember standing at an airshow watching two Lancaster bombers pass over in formation, and the announcer mentioning that awful statistic of 55 000 deaths out of a strngth of 125 000. That's a smaller version of Stalin's definition of a statistic. The Rolfe book really brought home what a tragedy it was (and Deighton doesn't shy from describing the effect on the poor bastards who were on the receiving end).