D-Day Bombers - First Edition - Signed by Eleven Bomber Command Veterans

The Veterans' Story - RAF Bomber Command and the US Eighth Air Force Support to the Normandy Invasion 1944

First Edition

Signed by author Steve Darlow and the following Bomber Command veterans 

Bob Knights DSO, DFC, Pilot, 617 and 619 Squadron
Tom Fox, Flight Engineer, 77 Squadron
Frank Leatherdale DFC, Navigator, 7 and 115 Squadron
Don Street DFC, Pilot, 61 Squadron
Ken Handley, Flight Engineer, 466 Squadron
Dennis Field, Pilot, 90 Squadron
Steve Yates, Wireless Operator, 428 Squadron
Edward Askew DFC, Pilot, 101 Squadron
'Chick' Chandler, Flight Engineer, XV and 622 Squadron
Jack Watson DFM, Flight Engineer, 12 and 156 Squadron
Geoff Gilbert DFM, Air Gunner, 61 Squadron

Hardcover: 288 pages

Publisher: Grub Street

ISBN 1 904040 79 2

Description

D-Day Bombers: The Veterans' Story is largely an eye-witness account of the vital heavy bomber contribution to the success of the D-Day landings and therefore to the winning of the war in Europe. It is told using considerable first-hand experience from the veterans of the campaign, something not really covered in any other books on the subject, together with background information from primary source documents on the tactics and strategy employed before, during and after the invasion. Eight different aircrews, five RAF and three USAAF, tell widely differing stories of their part in the operations. Their vivid and dramatic accounts are supplemented by numerous contributions from other aircrew and ground crew veterans, army personnel and French civilians, which have been carefully gathered by Stephen Darlow from interviews with the participants and their relatives, through correspondence and contemporary diaries. Certain raids have been selected and described in detail and there are numerous previously unpublished photographs. As Winston Churchill wrote: '...This is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes. There are vast numbers, not only in this island but in every land, who still render faithful service in the war, but whose names will never be known, whose deeds will never be recorded...' By meeting with the veterans themselves, Stephen Darlow has helped to record such deeds.