Rear Gunner Pathfinders

by Ron Smith, Wendy Barratt (Other)

Overview

This is a gripping narrative of what it was like to serve and fight with Bomber Command in World War 2 told by a participant in the struggle and one which offers a very unusual personal perspective on the conflict.

Ron Smith was a rear gunner in a Lancaster who flew 65 operations, flying firstly with 626 Squadron and later with156 Pathfinder Squadron.

The writing is exceptionally powerful, involving the reader in the events being described in a way that few World War 2 aviation memoirs have achieved;

‘Suddenly we were over the Big City… after long hours of searching the night sky from the coast, to be suddenly propelled into the brilliant hell over Berlin produced a freezing of the mind…flak sliced up through the broken illuminated clouds, ascending gracefully to stream past the turret. A Lancaster slid across at right angles with a single fighter just behind it, as if attached by an invisible thread… the city far below was bubbling and boiling, splashes of fire opening out as the blockbusters pierced this terrible brew.’

He vividly recalls the fear and intensity of what it was like to be a part of this epic struggle in the isolation of being cocooned in his lonely gun turret.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780907579397
Publisher:	Crecy
Publication date:	02/01/2019
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.32(d)

Table of Contents

Foreword 9

1 'Ten Minutes to the Enemy Coast 11

2 Operational 18

3 Berlin Again 43

4 On to Pathfinders 50

5 Visual Markers 57

6 Collision Course 63

7 Nuremberg 74

8 Preparation for D-Day 83

9 Back to Germany 92

10 Carry On 102

11 Leave 114

12 There Is a Future! 133

Appendices

A Victory Message 142

B Bomber Command Aircraft Losses 143

C Bomber Command Crew Losses 146

D Rear Gunner, from the poem by Ron Smith 147

E 156 (Pathfinder) Squadron 150