Bowman, Martin W. The Reich Intruders: Dramatic RAF Medium Bomber Raids over Europe in World War 2. Somerset, England: Patrick Stephens Limited, 1997.

ISBN 1 85260 539 1
192 pages

Acknowledgements; Glossary; Photos; Index.

Martin Bowman has a list of book credits as long as his arm, and this -- the third in a trilogy including The Men Who Flew the Mosquito and Confounding the Reich -- is a fine addition to his repertoire.

This volume covers the men, machines, and missions of 2 Group RAF and 2nd Tactical Air Force over Europe: the first pinprick raids by Blenheims at great cost to the airmen, the bloody losses in the skies above the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, anti-shipping "beats", the gradually strengthening intrusion missions over occupied Europe, special missions such as that against Gestapo HQ in Copenhagen, and the crescendo of overwhelming Allied air superiority as it provided massive support for the victory in Europe.

Along the way we witness events as seen from the cockpits of Blenheims, Mosquitos, Venturas, Bostons, and Mitchells. On 4 September 1939 the RAF launches its first mission in anger against Germany; in the attack on the German fleet at Schillig Roads, five of ten participating Blenheims are lost in exchange for negligible damage. On 13 August 1940 82 Squadron loses 11 of 12 aircraft in a raid against Aalborg; the photo of a crashed Blenheim and Sgt John A. Oates "who lies badly injured in the foreground with a fractured skull, a broken back and both legs paralysed" is painful to look at. Other airmen emerge from incredible circumstances with greater fortune:

On the night of 10/11 November, while returning from a bombing raid, the crew ditched in the North Sea after running low on fuel in a gale. Merrett perished but Martin managed to pull the badly injured Metcalfe into a life-raft and they were picked up by HMS Vega, a Navy minesweeper, which then hit a mine and sank. An ASR craft from Felixstowe picked them up and Metcalfe survived, spending several weeks in hospital. Sent home on R&R by train, the train crashed, killing 16 people!

The whole is a well-balanced blend of Bowman's text interspersed with personal narratives and a nice selection of photos. Bowman's words, informative and descriptive without being overly dramatic, provide the main thread of the book while the individual reminiscences add a great deal of vivid spice.

These reminiscences are quite handily written. Some are taken from wartime letters from pilots and aircrew; it's unclear whether the others originated from oral interviews or written accounts. Whatever the source, they are inevitably cogent, fitting, and matter of fact in rendering wartime enthusiasms, escapades, and tragedies, always thick with the language and flavor of wartime.

   We were somewhere near the Dutch/Belgian border and could have been heading for Bruges or even Antwerp. As this was totally unsatisfactory I decided, rightly or wrongly, to pull up to 250-300 feet to see if I could pick up a pin-point position. As soon as we reached that height without warning there was an enormous high-pitched explosion. A shell had gone through the fuselage about 3 feet behind my head and exploded in the fuselage. It should have blown my head off, but I found out later I had one of the Venturas with a 2-inch steel plate behind the seat. This saved me, but unfortunately it caught my wireless operator. I kept a straight face and a straight course. I couldn't see behind me. Then Robbie came through from the navigation section in the nose and looked down the fuselage. In his slow, unemotional Lancashire voice, he said, "Steve's been hit, sir."
   I said, "Then bring him alongside me."
   The crew, including a F/O who had "come along for the ride", dragged him and laid him down at the side of me. He was covered in blood from head to foot. I later discovered that he had been blinded by phosphorous burns to his eyes, his elbow joint was smashed and he had 30 bits of small shrapnel in him. His lips were moving.
   I said, "What's he saying."
   "He wants to know if we're going back."
   Two of the crew said, "He's bleeding to death. If you turn back now, sir, you might just save his life."
   This calls for very hard decisions when you have been in the same crew for six months. There is a deep personal friendship and bond that grows up quite regardless of rank. There lay poor Steve in an ever-widening pool of blood. I pulled the "stick" back and shot up into the clouds at 800 feet, levelled off and let them give him such help as they could. Someone tried a morphine injection. They said again, "He wants to know if we're going back."
   I shouted to them, "Shout in his ear and say we've turned round and we're going back."
   We had not. We were going straight on.

Another good book on the air war.

Available from mail order booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from Patrick Stephens Limited.

Thanks to Patrick Stephens (and parent company Haynes Publishing) for providing this review copy.