Fighter Boys and Bomber Boys: Saving Britain 1940–1945

by Patrick Bishop

  P.S. Ideas, Interviews & Features…

  About the Author

  Q and A

  Louise Tucker talks to Patrick Bishop

  For most of your career you have been a war correspondent, and now you also write books, but what did you want to be when you grew up?

  Apart from a brief moment when I thought I might be a soldier I always wanted to be a writer. I saw it as a romantic calling that would impress girls and not involve too much work. Both assumptions turned out to be mistaken.

  How did your family background influence your choice of career, if at all?

  Neither of my parents came from the world of books. My father was a building engineer and my mother a teacher. Both were profoundly interested in books, however, and I, my brother and three sisters were brought up to reverence them.

  A real sense of home, and a loyalty to such a place, informs many of the stories in Bomber Boys. Where is home for you, and what does such a concept mean to you?

  The first six years of my life were spent in rural Kent, the scene of much of my first book, Fighter Boys. The rest of my upbringing was in suburban South London, parts of which were hit in the Blitz. I have an enduring love for both places and feel a deep attachment to the nondescript streets of places like Morden, Berrylands and the less posh parts of Wimbledon. I feel comfortable there and I think that is what lies at the heart of the concept of ‘home’. Most of the Bomber Boys were fighting for the street they grew up in – not some propaganda concoction of elm trees spreading over the village green.

  How and where did you start your research for this book and who was your first interviewee?

  I started by talking to one of the great men of Bomber Command, Tony Iveson of 617 Squadron, who was on the raid that sank the Tirpitz. One of the joys of research is that you meet remarkable people. I am now proud to have some of them as friends.

  Geoffrey Willatt’s story about being a POW and the surreal experience of ‘shouting to be let in’ to a prisoners’ camp stands out as one of the most memorable stories for me. Do you have a favourite?

  I think it would be the tale of Dave Shannon, which demonstrates that even a man of his legendary coolness felt the appalling strain of operational flying like everyone else. Walking with Leonard Cheshire out to their aircraft one evening to fly over Germany, Cheshire remarked on the beautiful sunset. ‘I don’t give a fuck about that,’ said Shannon. ‘I want to see the sunrise.’

  Were there any differences between writing and researching your first book Fighter Boys and writing and researching this?

  Fighter Boys was about the Battle of Britain, which was about as morally straightforward a struggle as it is possible to have in warfare. The bombing campaign was far more complicated. The story is darker and more terrible, both for those who flew the aircraft and for those under the bombs. One difference in the research was that the long duration of the strategic air offensive meant that there was far more contemporaneous written material to draw from. There is a wealth of diaries and letters and subsequently many veterans felt compelled to record their memoirs.

  What has being a war correspondent taught you about war, and peace, and did writing these books confirm or contradict that knowledge?

  What I’ve learned is that war is a complicated and contradictory business. At one level it is simply a matter of destruction, suffering and waste. At another, it provides opportunity and circumstances in which people can behave incredibly well. The enduring fact of modern warfare is that it is always the innocent who suffer most. Also, that fighting rarely produces the desired results.

  There is often a distinction made, sometimes to the detriment of journalists, between journalists and writers: do you think that there is a difference?

  The best journalists are conscious that they are – to use a hackneyed but apposite phrase – engaged in writing the first draft of history. They are diligent, accurate and aware of context and nuance, and their reporting is a valuable addition to the archive. Others are lazy, sloppy and contemptuous of the truth if it crosses the tramlines of their own or their editors’ preconceptions. There is and always has been a lot of this kind of journalism about and in the frantic world of deadlines it is easy to get away with. Good journalists can write good books. Bad journalists venturing into hard covers still tend to write rubbish – just at greater length.

  Frances Scott wrote that ‘It seemed as though they suddenly changed from adolescents to mature men, missing the carefree years of the early twenties.’ Did the stories you discovered ever make you feel that subsequent generations were spoilt in comparison?

  Spoilt is perhaps not the right word. But certainly privileged. I am from a generation born in the 1950s and I was brought up to understand the sacrifices that were made on my behalf. Inevitably with time, that comprehension is bound to fade. Having said that, I am pleasantly surprised at the level of awareness amongst the young of what the Second World War was about and the respect that is shown to those who took part in it. When I was growing up the Boer War was only sixty years distant yet it might have happened in the Dark Ages for all we knew about it. The Second World War ended more than sixty years ago, yet it still holds a central place in our collective memory now.

  How did those that survived, the rank and file, as opposed to Harris, cope with the public embarrassment about Bomber Command displayed after the war?

  They behaved like men of their time. Whatever private hurt they may have felt at the injustice that was done to them, they kept to themselves. It wouldn’t happen now.

  At the end of the prologue and in the last chapter you mention the lack of a proper memorial for the Bomber Boys and your hope that the book will ‘mark a first step in changing that’. Do you think there is any chance now that a physical memorial will be set up in memory of the sacrifice made?

  I would like to think so, but there are large political obstacles that would have to be negotiated. Prime among them is a shared desire by the political establishment not to do anything that might be deemed provocative by our German partners in Europe. There is also the fact that the veterans with their characteristic modesty and restraint do not want to be seen making a fuss.

  Human stories, rather than the coldness of statistics, illuminate Bomber Boys from the start. Will you continue writing real-life tales or will you be tempted to move into fiction next?

  I’m going to carry on writing history but I have recently moved into fiction. My novel A Good War, a romantic thriller set during the Battle of Britain and the Normandy invasion, is out this spring.

  LIFE at a Glance

  BORN

  * * *

  1952, Ashford, Kent

  EDUCATED

  * * *

  Wimbledon College; Corpus Christi College, Oxford

  CAREER

  * * *

  Evening Standard, the Observer: Northern Ireland Correspondent, War Correspondent, the Falklands, 1982; Sunday Times: Diplomatic Correspondent; Sunday Telegraph, Daily Telegraph: Middle East Correspondent, Senior Foreign Correspondent, Foreign Editor, Associate Editor (Foreign), Paris Correspondent

  TOP TEN Favourite Reads

  1. Sentimental Education

  Gustave Flaubert

  2. Just William

  Richmal Crompton

  3. The String of Pearls

  Joseph Roth

  4. Ashenden

  Somerset Maugham

  5. The Great Gatsby

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  6. A Peace to End All Peace

  David Fromkin

  7. The Proud Tower

  Barbara Tuchman

  8. My Early Life

  Winston S. Churchill

  9. The Canterbury Tales

  Geoffrey Chaucer

  10. A Hero of Our Time

  Mikhail Lermontov

  Read On

  Have You Read?

  Also by Patrick Bishop

  Fighter Boys: Saving Britain 1940

  In the summer of 1940 the fut
ure of Britain and, arguably, the free world depended on the morale and skill of a small group of mostly very young men. Their victory became celebrated as a classic feat of arms. But it was also a triumph of the spirit in which the attitudes and outlook of the pilots played a crucial part. In this highly acclaimed history, the author reaches beyond the myths to convey what it was to be a fighter pilot, in war and peace.

  3 Para

  When the elite 3 Para Battlegroup were dispatched to the Helmand Province in Afghanistan they faced a nightmarish reality: 50 degree heat, few provisions, no water, fighting an unpredictable and determined enemy. Their aim quickly changed from providing security during reconstruction efforts – to just staying alive. Patrick Bishop was given exclusive access to this elite Battlegroup and gives an account of astonishing discipline, determination and courage. 3 Para is an unforgettable portrait of one of the world’s finest fighting regiments.

  Read the first chapter of 3 Para at the end of this section

  If You Loved This, You Might Like…

  Eighth Air Force: The American Bomber Crews in Britain

  Donald Miller

  A history of the US Eighth Air Force, which flew Liberators and Flying Fortresses alongside the RAF’s Lancasters and Halifaxes. Like Bomber Boys, it details both the bombing campaigns and the individual experiences, but also shows the effect of hundreds of young American pilots arriving in the quiet of an East Anglia devoid of young British men…

  On the Natural History of Destruction

  W. G. Sebald

  In this collection of essays published posthumously, W. G. Sebald explores the complete silence in post-war Germany on the subject of the Allied bombing of its cities. With characteristically beautiful writing, he probes the trauma and experiences of a nation that seemed to be choosing to forget its past.

  Bomber Command

  Max Hastings

  A detailed account of Bomber Command’s role in the Allied offensive against Germany, written by one of the most well-known writers of British military history.

  Band of Brothers

  Stephen E. Ambrose

  Whether you read this book, or watch the TV series of the same name, Ambrose’s description of the life of Easy Company, the 101st Airborne Division, in the Second World War is unforgettable. Using interviews, journals and letters, the author takes us through what it is to be a young US paratrooper, from the training in Georgia to their arrival in France on D-Day.

  Jarhead: A Soldier’s Story of Modern War

  Anthony Swofford

  A memoir of a completely different war, the 1991 Gulf War, Jarhead is an unromantic and cold-eyed examination of both what is involved in modern warfare and what sort of person takes part in conflict. Intense, disturbing and revealing, it has now been made into a film, directed by Sam Mendes.

  Cheshire: The Biography of Leonard Cheshire, VC, OM

  Richard Morris

  Bishop writes that ‘Cheshire struck everybody who came across him as remarkable in every way; exceptionally tough, brave and good’ and Nehru described him as ‘the greatest man I have met since Gandhi’. In this biography, Richard Morris tells the story of a man who not only achieved great distinction in the Second World War, but also left a legacy that helps millions of disabled people all over the world.

  Birdsong

  Sebastian Faulks

  One of the most lauded novels about the First World War, and rightfully so, Birdsong tells the story of Stephen Wraysford, who falls in love with a married woman four years before the outbreak of war. The relationship is doomed and when Stephen arrives in the trenches he is traumatized by the memory of what he has lost and the fear of what he might be about to lose. The descriptions of the Battle of the Somme are astounding.

  FIND OUT MORE

  http://www.rafbombercommand.com

  The RAF’s own very detailed site, which includes information on tactics, personal stories and links to the Bomber Command Association.

  http://www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/index.html

  Another official RAF site, set up to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris being appointed to take over Bomber Command.

  Lots of in-depth history and detail about raids, squadrons and the aircraft used.

  The first chapter of Patrick Bishop’s new book, 3 Para

  Day of Days

  At about 8 a.m. on the morning of 6 September 2006 Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Tootal rolled out of his cot, pulled on his uniform and boots and set off along the duckboard walkway to catch up on overnight events.

  The sun was already high and a pale, malevolent haze hovered over the talcum-powder dust of the Helmand desert. He reached a tent bristling with radio antennae and pushed aside the door flap. Inside it was warm and stuffy. The gloom was pricked with little nails of green and red light, winking from stacks of electronic consoles. It was quiet except for the occasional squawk from the radios. This was the Joint Operational Command, the ‘JOC’, where the synapses of the battle group he led came together.

  Tootal was slight, wiry and driven. He was as interested in the theory of soldiering as he was in the practice, and had as many degrees as battle honours. His enthusiasm for his job was matched by his concern for his men. There would be much to be concerned about before the day was over.

  The 3 Para battle group had arrived in Helmand five months earlier. Its task was to create a security zone within which development agencies could get to work on projects to develop an area barely touched by progress and lay the foundations for a future of relative prosperity.

  The plan had always been aspirational. The religious warriors of the Taliban, who were struggling to reassert their power in the province, were certain to oppose the arrival of the British.

  Everyone had expected some trouble, but not the relentless combat the soldiers were now immersed in. The reconstruction mission had become a memory. 3 Para and their comrades were fighting a desperate war of attrition. Most of them were besieged in bare mud-and-breeze-block government compounds – ‘platoon houses’, as they had become known – scattered over the north of the province, fighting off daily attacks from an enemy who, despite taking murderous losses, kept on coming. They spent their days pounded by the sun as they took their turn at ‘stag’, crouching in sandbagged, rooftop gun positions, or standing by to run to their posts when the shooting started. They slept on floors, washed rarely and lived off ration packs and sterilised water. They were gaunt, bony and rough looking. Their sunburned faces were fuzzed with beards, just like those of the men they were fighting.

  They were on their own out there. Beyond the walls of the compound and the shattered towns lay tawny, sun-baked mountains and vast stretches of desert, ridged with dry water-courses. The mother base at Camp Bastion was far away and they were connected to it by the slimmest of links, the helicopters whose vulnerability to the insurgents’ fire made every sortie heart-stoppingly tense.

  The morning started calmly. The previous day, most of the fighting had been around the base at Musa Qaleh, a broken-down fortress in the middle of a ghost town, now inhabited only by men trying to kill each other. It was held by the soldiers of Easy Company, some of whom had been there for thirty-one days. In the morning, the insurgents had lobbed five mortars into the compound from concealed positions in the maze of alleyways and walled gardens that pressed against the walls of the base.

  At about 7.40 that evening some of the Royal Irish Regiment soldiers with the 3 Para battle group were on a satellite phone to their comrades at their home near Inverness, discussing the ‘big piss-up’ that was being organised to celebrate their expected homecoming in a few weeks’ time. The call was interrupted by the crash of an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) smashing into one of the sandbagged ‘sangar’ defensive positions ringing the platoon house. The blast knocked the four men inside flat and sent a soldier flying down the stone steps, knocking him unconscious. The soldiers in the sangar struggled upright and got on their guns, scanned t
he ground in front of them for muzzle flashes, and poured fire into the darkness. Green and red tracer flowed back and forth, and the crack of rifles and the throb of machine guns shattered the air.

  The Taliban attack was finally beaten off after forty minutes when British and American jets arrived to bomb and strafe the insurgents’ positions. Intelligence reported ‘many Taliban killed in action’. Before he grabbed some sleep, Corporal Danny Groves, one of the Royal Irish soldiers, wrote with satisfaction in his diary: ‘Today was a very good day for the boys… The Taliban had attempted to overrun us but instead they received a hell of a beating from the mismatched men of Easy Company.’

  And now, another day in Helmand was dawning. At 9 a.m., Tootal’s headquarters staff gathered in the JOC for the morning brief. A few incidents had trickled in over the radio net. Just before 8 a.m., four mortars had landed in the base at Now Zad. This was the most remote of the outstations, about fifty miles to the north-west as the helicopter flew from Bastion. Half an hour later, small-arms fire and RPGs were fired at the platoon house at Sangin. This was the normal back-and-forth violence, the metronome tick of aggression and counter-aggression that punctuated every day. There was nothing to distract Tootal from his usual crowded morning of meetings and briefings.