Book description
A Lancaster bomber required a crew of seven men. Van, the pilot is
American, Jock, Flight Engineer a Scot. Piers, the hopeless navigator is
a foppish aristocrat - 'Frightfully sorry, Skipper, not absolutely sure
where we are'. The bomb aimer is an Aussie. Wireless operator a London
cockney who was 'older than God', a mid-upper gunner with terrible
eyesight, and the most heartrending of all, the rear gunner, dragged
backwards in a fishbowl through the sky, a seventeen-year-old who had
lied about his age to get into the air force. They are all appalling at
the beginning of the book. The pilot nearly crashes them on the first
landing, they don't get on all that well with each other. They all
loathe Piers, the toff, and they don't cohere as a team at all. Then,
slowly, as they begin their first real gut-dropping bombing raids over
Germany they begin to develop as a real crew, depending on each other,
becoming more proficient. Charlie's young widowed mum comes to live in a
cottage near the airfield in order to be near 'her boy'. Inevitably a
romance develops between her and the 'older than God' wireless operator
(over thirty!). Other women become involved, love them, lose them. One
of the crew is killed at the end...which one? A wonderful emotive,
gripping, heart wrenching novel of men, and women, at their best.
Margaret Mayhew was born in London and her earliest childhood memories
were of the London Blitz. She began writing in her mid-thirties and had
her first novel published in 1976. She is married to American aviation
author, Philip Kaplan, and lives in Gloucestershire. Her novels,
Bluebirds, The Crew, The Little Ship, Our Yanks, The Pathfinder and
Those In Peril are all published by Corgi Books.
