Rear Gunner Pathfinders

By Ron Smith and Ron Smith

Book Overview

A bomber command book with a difference. Rear Gunner Pathfinders is the story of the air war over Germany as seen from the small Perspex bubble of a 'Tail-End Charlie' rear gunner in a Lancaster. Flying first with 626 squadron, and later 156 Pathfinder squadron, Ron Smith flew 65 operations and recorded them with the intensity brought on by the isolation of being cocooned in his lonely gun turret.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0907579396
• ISBN13: 9780907579397
• Release Date: February 2019
• Publisher: Goodall Publications Ltd
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.0" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

A personal account with a wider relevance of war's affect on those who do survive it.

This is a great personal account of the life of a rear gunner in a dangerous pathfinder squadron. At first it all seems exciting and fresh. Young men caught up in an adventure. But then as friends die and the writer becomes ground down with the reality of war as a rear gunner, a lonely sadness descends. There is a strange juxtaposition between on the one hand the trials of life on a combat mission with all its comraderie and then on the otherhand life off duty and a loneliness that can only be overcome by returning to his crew and the horrible dangerous business of war and death and its grinding sapping of ones spirit. The writer is in awe of his crewmates and especially his highly skillful Canadian pilot. The effect of this time of his life never leaves the writer and in a poignant few pages he tells of the ongoing affect on the rest of his life. For myself, the son of a man who served in another completely different theatre of WW2, this book has one hell of a universal relevence and is an insight into what drove these men and the affect it had on their lives. This great account gives a rare insight to a generation of men whose youth was ripped away from them, by war. Nothing short of 5 stars, a highly recommended read.