Ops: Victory at All Costs: Operations over Hitler’s Reich with the Crews of Bomber Command 1939-1945, Their War – Their Words. This item is unavailable.Ops: Victory at All Costs: Operations over Hitler’s Reich with the Crews of Bomber Command 1939-1945, Their War – Their Words

Many books have been written about Bomber Command's war, from the highest levels of command to the experiences of the lowest WAAF, but only a few have been able to reveal the human side of the bomber crews' experience. Based upon many personal interviews, correspondence and archival sources, Andrew Simpson has compiled a compelling, informative and absorbing documentary record of what the men of Bomber Command went through, from initial training and crew formation, to descriptions of life on squadron and on their extremely dangerous and draining operations, to the numbing effect of morale breakdown. This intensely researched book, the result of years of work, contains many personal accounts from air crew; from those that survived and those that did not. Many heroic, tragic and often humorous incidents are described. The author also examines the technology of bombing and how this form of aerial warfare evolved in terms of aircraft design, navigation, bombing methods, tactics and gunnery as used in, and as deployed by, the Hampden, Whitley and Wellington medium bombers, and the Stirling, Halifax and Lancaster‘heavies' which equipped Bomber Command's squadrons. Running like a thread through the work is the story of the author's father, who served as a Lancaster pilot on an Australian bomber squadron during 1943 and 1944. His very personal account forms the backbone of this comprehensively researched and often very moving book. For anyone with a desire to learn more about Britain's aircrews at war or for those seeking to understand more about the operations of Bomber Command, this book offers a unique and extraordinary insight into a momentous period of history.

Andrew Simpson trained as an architect and has an Honours Degree in History. He served in the 4th (Volunteer) Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, in Liverpool in the late 1970s where he ‘learnt to run’, while his great grandfather on his mother’s side was the oldest serving Royal Naval officer in World War One and was awarded the OBE for his services. A Friend of the Royal Air Forces Association, he has been interested in aviation and the Second World War since an early age. His fascination with T.E. Lawrence led to his first book, Another Life: Lawrence after Arabia (The History Press, 2008), a full length examination of Lawrence’s life after the First World War and his time in the RAF. Shortly before this book was published, Andrew’s father died and as a second book, he set out to record his father’s experiences as an Australian Lancaster pilot in World War Two. In order to make the book more comprehensive he contacted over 300 veterans of Bomber Command and interviewed some 20 or so personally to find out more about their experiences. The sum total of this, together with archive research and personal correspondence with the sons of his father’s old crews in England and Australia, became ‘Ops’: Victory at All Costs, an examination of the bomber war and all that it was like to fly on operations.