Book description
To crash or be shot down into the sea is a terrifying experience. And
to escape to tell the tale is a rare and remarkable achievement. But
that is precisely what each of the World War Two heroes described here
has done; they have come 'down in the drink' and miraculously survived.
In doing so, they have all qualified for the 'Goldfish Club'. Ralph
Barker tells the hair-raising and inspiring stories of eight such air
crews. There is the tale of the Beaufort that ditches in the North Sea,
the Wellington crew stranded in the Bay of Biscay and the Mosquito
fighter-bomber trapped in the sea off Burma, keeping afloaton the
wreckage of his fuselage,concussed, his bones broken, withonly a flask
of whisky to keep him going. In DOWN IN THE DRINK, the accounts of
heroism and endurance match any from that historic time. They are
stories of men from all corners of the British Commonwealth fighting for
survival against unimaginable odds. No one could read of their
experiences without being stirred by the proof they give that there is
no limit to human courage. Ralph Barker served in the RAF during the
war. He was fortunate enough never to end up 'down in the drink'
himself, though his Beaufort was hit a few times, and he survived a
crash on take-off in which his pilot and navigator were killed. After
the war, he worked in civil aviation for a short time, before rejoining
the RAF, to work in the secretariat until 1961. DOWN IN THE DRINK (1957)
launched a successful career as a writer, in the course of which he has
written over a dozen books on the RAF, books on terrorism and war at
sea, and hundreds of feature articles for the Sunday Express.
