Bomber Command War Diaries: An Operational Reference Book, 1939-1945

Having lived in Lincolnshire and experienced some of those derelict bommber bases along with a distance relative who perished as a Lancaster tail gunner, I had to know more! This book is an excellent reference manual taking the reader from the amateur beginnings of Bomber Barons ideals with the leaflet raids to the remorseless destruction of targets such as Dresden towards the end of the RAF Bomber Campaign in Europe. The book is split into 21 phases of the campaign based around either technical or strategic developments. Most raids are identified individually giving numbers despatched, losses and brief results/summaries. The introductions to the phases give good summary briefs of that particular stage of the campaign, be it Yalta or Window.An interesting spin off from this book was with my Dutch father in law who was a 'guest' worker in Kassel on the night of 22/23 Oct '43. According to the family it was apparently the only time he had talked about his experiences when he discussed this raid in the book with me. Not a pleasant experience, he lost most of his friends on that night.Otherwise this book is a definite requirement for the amateur historian or just the plain old hobbyist.