Deighton takes his time building up to the main event, spending a little over half of the book recounting a day in the lives of both the British aircrews and the Germans who would be involved in the attack. Len Deighton — one of the masters of twentieth-century espionage fiction — combines his expertise as both historian and novelist in Bomber , the classic World War II novel that relates, in devastating detail, the twenty-four-hour story of an allied bombing raid. This book, deliberately delivered with great weight by the narrator, paints every view of the air war and pulls me back to those empty airfields the visits to which with my dad lead me to an aircrew brevet. e.; trying to force Lambert’s wife, Ruth to convince her husband to play cricket for the company team or he would be prosecuted for supposed leftist views. In all areas the author’s diligence and knowledge of air campaigns is remarkable as is his precise depictions of planes, weapons, and behind the scenes war strategy.

So though the reader is naturally rooting for the British aircrews, you cannot help but feel for the Germans being bombed. Bomber is written in a matter-of-fact style that brings home the random nature of warfare - the lucky escapes, the pointless deaths. Book, Pages age toning , jacket edges insect nibbled, with rear flap almost detached, now in a new protective sleeve holding it all in position. Describing a single raid on the night of 31 June 1943 (a date calendar watchers will know never occurred), this is a comprehensive look at the kind of event that had taken on a near-ritualistic nature by this stage of the war.Brittain was a novelist, a prominent member of London’s cultural scene, and when she referred to the British public’s acquiescence as a failure of imagination, she was locating the failure, at least in part, with the community she belonged to: the custodians of the national imagination. By subscribing to Pushkin+ or purchasing an audiobook, you are agreeing to be bound by Pushkin’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policies and to be added to Pushkin’s mailing list. The moral dilemma and the psychological component are aptly portrayed in Kurt Vonnegut’s work, SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE as well as in non-fiction offerings such as historians Richard Overy’s THE BOMBERS AND THE BOMBED: ALLIED AIRWAR OVER EUROPE, 1940-1945; Frederick Taylor’s DRESDEN: TUESDAY FEBRUARY 13, 1945, AND COVENTRY NOVEMBER 14, 1940; Jorg Friedrich’s THE BOMBING OF GERMANY 1940-1945; and Keith Lowe’s INFERNO:THE FIERY DESTRUCTION OF HAMBURG 1943.

Although now, in the cool of the night, the aircraft was steadier than it had been in the heated turbulence of afternoon, the air was still full of surprises. I have to believe that anyone that lived through these events would readily relate to the feelings and actions portrayed by the characters brought to life by Deighton. There are no winners here, and I defy any reader to make their way through this and not feel absolutely gutted by the end. As an accessible documentary of the campaign, Deighton is unflinchingly accurate in blending fact with the necessary mechanics of characterisation.Powerful and often harrowing, but definitely not one to miss for those interested in the stark realities of history. I can’t resist quoting this little bit, where Deighton is describing an RAF intelligence officer at the base where half the book is situated: Flying Officer Longfellow, graduate of Cambridge and middling novelist. Could possibly be considered by some to be an anti-war book since it shows the folly of the fictitious raid and the horrible cost in human sacrifice - to what end?