A Thousand Shall Fall

[D-Day_Dodger]

I just spent the holidays reading an excellent first hand account of life in Bomber Command called "A Thousand Shall Fall" by a Canuck pilot named Murray Peden (the same author who wrote "Fall of an Arrow").
Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris wrote, "I consider it not only the best and most true to life 'war' book I've read about this war, but the best about all the wars of my lifetime". The book weighs in at almost 500 pages and is a true gem.

The author grew up in Winnipeg and enlisted in the RCAF as soon as he turned eighteen. He went through the Commonwealth Air Training Plan in Canada where he got his wings. After arriving in England he went to an Operational Training Unit where he flew Wellingtons and then went to a Heavy Conversion Unit where he learned to fly Short Stirlings.

He was posted to 214 Sqd flying Stirlings, a far cry from the fighter pilot he had hoped he would become when he enlisted. Here, apart from bombing the Reich, he also laid mines, dropped leaflets to French citizens or supplies to the French resistance. Eventually the Stirlings were taken out of front line service and 214 Sqd was re-equipped with B-17's which were used in an electronic counter measures role, accompanying the heavies in the bomber stream. Peden goes into some detail on the equipment his plane carried, the changing technology on both sides and the tactics used by Bomber Command to confuse the German night fighter controllers.

I love good first hand accounts because they provide the details that offical histories can't. For instance, Peden thought highly of the Stirling, but knew she was condemned to obselence before the first plane was ever delivered. She was Britain's first 4 engine heavy bomber, but the problem was that the Stirling could only reach 12,000 feet with a full load and the reason for this is that she only had a wingspan of 99 feet. The designers at Short had called for a wing span of 110 feet but the British Air Ministry said our biggest hangars are only 100 feet wide, so shorten the wingspan.

This book also cleared up another mystery. I have always wondered why the designers of the Lancaster didn't incorporate a ball turret in the belly to protect it's vulnerable underside. Peden relates that when his squadron re-equipped with Fortress' they ended up removing the underside ball turrets because it was impossible to see anything when looking down at the ground at night. The first warning a ball turret gunner would have of an attack would be the sight of tracer fire going past him.

I found the early part of the author's story particularily interesting because my dad went through the Commonwealth Air Training Plan and ended up flying Wellingtons for Coastal Command out of Gibraltar and the Azores (a lucky posting, in as much as a posting to Bomber Command was pretty much a death sentence). I have a much better understanding now of what he had to go through to get his wings.

This book is full of the author's personal recollections, not just of fighting, but the good times and the tragic ones, the odd assortment of people he met, his drinking forays and his romantic forays. But through-out the book we are reminded of the heavy personal toll. One would think from reading this book that the author's entire graduating class joined the RCAF and that most of them got the chop.

For anyone with an interest in Bomber Command this book is a must.

[Gasbag]

I can remember reading this book years ago & it was a very interesting title. If anyone's interested, Bob Baxter's Bomber Command Index has a lot of information too.

[Currahee]

Thanks for the great report, I'll get it for sure. Sounds a bit like Wings of Morning- U.S., but a bit out of the mainstream, as it's about Liberators flying out of England. A very stirring book.

[D-Day_Dodger]

I really think you'll like this book, Currahee. There is no false bravado or patriotic rhetoric, just his honest report on what he saw, preserved in stacks of letters sent home to his parents.

He mentions at some length the time that American crews spent training his RAF sqd on B-17's and the close bond that grew between them and the Allied air crew. He mentions an American Liberator that landed at his aerodrome due to bad weather one night. They were eagerly welcomed into the officer's mess where a good time was had by all. When the weather cleared enough to take off, the party ended and 20 minutes later the Liberator crew were dead; the weather had closed in again.

The book is liberally sprinkled with incidents like that. In fact, when "Bomber" Harris wrote to the author, in the same letter he which he said he thought this the best 'war' book he had ever read, he also said,

"I have only 2 criticisms to make 1/That at all times it made me so sad that I found it hard to retain the moisture within my eyes:-
2/The one ref you made to Bomber Command bombing our own troops is not quite correct... (Harris goes on to comment on Bomber Command's bombing of Canadian troops near Caen).

I found one part of the book even had a personal connection for me. In the epilogue, Peden describes the 1970 reunion in Winnipeg, Manitoba of air crew who had trained in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. 1300 vets gathered from North America, England and Europe. Among them were such luminaries as Group Capt Douglas Bader, Britains legless ace; Air Vice Marshall Johnnie Johnson, Britain's highest scoring ace and commander of the Canadian Wing; Air Commodore Johnny Fauquier, Canadian commander of the "Dam Busters" Sqd and General Leutenant Adolf Gallant, ace and commander of Germany's fighter forces at the end of the war.

Also in attendance was Sqd Ldr Donald F. McRae, DFC, a Coastal Command pilot who flew 'Leigh Light" equpped Wellinton's on night time operations and was officially credited with destroying 3 U-boats. He was also my father and a great dad.

[Currahee]

Thanks again, I'm ordering it now. You will like Wings of Morning, it's not a "history" nor a novel, but also based on contemporary, actual letters, and other memorabilia. As I recall, assembled by a nephew in memory of his uncle.

[D-Day_Dodger]

It sounds as though Wings of Morning is very much along the lines of this book and a very good read. I've put it on my wish list.

[Currahee]

I've been reading Peden's A Thousand Shall Fall, I'm only about a fifth of the way in, he's not in combat yet, and I'm already blown away. It's going to be every bit as good as Dodger said.