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.