Lancaster Men
The Aussie heroes of Bomber Command
Published on 1. April 2013
448 pages
978-1-74343-398-0 (ISBN)
Description
More than 10,000 Australians served with Bomber Command, a highly trained band of elite flyers who undertook some of the most dangerous operations of World War II. They flew raid after raid over France and Germany knowing that the odds were against them. Stretched to breaking point, nearly 3500 died in the air. Their bravery in extreme circumstances has barely been recognised.
Peter Rees traces the extraordinary achievements of these young aviators. He tells their hair-raising stories of battle action and life on the ground. And he recounts how, when they returned to Australia, they were greeted as Jap dodgers and accused of 'hiding in England while we were doing it tough'.
Exciting, compelling and full of life, Lancaster Men is a powerful tribute to these forgotten Australian heroes of World War II.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
NSW
Australia
File size
3,89 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-74343-398-0 (9781743433980)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
04/2013
Allen & Unwin
€15.50
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Person
Peter Rees was a journalist for more than forty years, working as federal political correspondent for the Melbourne Sun, the West Australian and the Sunday Telegraph. He is the author of The Boy from Boree Creek: The Tim Fischer Story (2001), Tim Fischer's Outback Heroes (2002), Killing Juanita: a true story of murder and corruption (2004), and The Other Anzacs: The Extraordinary story of our World War I Nurses (2008 and 2009) and Desert Boys: Australians at War from Beersheba to Tobruk to El Alamein (2011 and 2012). He is currently working on a biography of Charles Bean to be published in 2015.
Content
- Front cover
- About the author
- Title Page
- Contents
- Introduction
- Prologue
- Prelude
- 1 The Sugarloaf
- 2 The short-arm parade
- 3 The usual awful eternity
- 4 The Thousand Plan
- 5 The Dimbool regatta
- 6 Cold, gut-wrenching fear
- 7 Crippled over Essen
- 8 The jam can
- 9 The German from Sydney
- 10 The poacher
- 11 Stalag time
- 12 Feuersturm
- 13 WAAFs and other girlfriends
- 14 Fairly shaken
- 15 The boomerang
- 16 Danger above
- 17 Cramped
- 18 The silent world
- 19 An inviting target
- 20 Beating the odds
- 21 Trouble on the base
- 22 No easy answer
- Picture insert
- 23 The quick and the dead
- 24 Good luck, boys
- 25 Face to face with the enemy
- 26 D-Day
- 27 Death only a matter of time
- 28 The battle for recognition
- 29 The sweetest words of all
- 30 No backward glances
- 31 Shot down
- 32 The strain of command
- 33 Letters from the front
- 34 The clairvoyant
- 35 Double scotch, thanks
- 36 The beast
- 37 The special duties boys
- 38 Smoke puffs and flak barrages
- 39 Forebodings
- 40 The prisoner in the cell next door
- 41 Shrove Tuesday
- 42 An unearthly thing
- 43 Sharing bread
- 44 An air force divided
- 45 Return to the Sugarloaf
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
- Postscript
- Bibliography
- Index
