Bomber squadron at war/ Andrew Brookes.

Bibliography: pages [4]

The majority of the highly successful 'at War' series has concentrated on specific aircraft types - what they were like to fly, maintain or fight. In Fighter Squadron at War Andrew Brookes attempted to delve deeper into the atmosphere of a unit over the years of the war and so successful was his evocation of squadron life that a companion volume of a Bomber squadron has accrued. This book, therefore, is not so much a history of machinery as an attempt to underline the human dimension of World War 2. The unit chosen - No 101 Squadron - had a varied, exciting and distinguished combat history, but this is not an official history of the unit. Rather, it is a kaleidoscope of life in wartime as seen through the medium of official reports, letters, diaries, mementoes and personal photographs that the members of one squadron left behind. This is how they saw themselves and how others saw them; the words are theirs, the pictures are theirs, the emphasis is too; and if this book reinforces some points and neglects others, it is only a measure of what the squadron personnel regarded as important and, by implication, what they deemed of less consequence. Bomber Squadron at War should therefore be regarded as a scrapbook of an age, for it attempts to portray how men and women in RAF uniform worked and played, fought and died. This is the story of a perfectly ordinary generation that was plucked from its studies and civilian jobs to take part in a conflict which was not of its making, which was often beyond its understanding, and which promised not ripe old age but, rather, death on the morrow. This story, therefore, is dedicated to everyone who served in the RAF and particularly to those who fought for a peace they did not live to enjoy.