From hero to villain

Patrick Bishop’s much praised Fighter Boys brought new life to the story of the Battle of Britain; by analysing the backgrounds of the pilots he added a dimension of who-they-were to the well-known what-they-did. Rescued from the status of national myth, they became people again.

Trying the same with Bomber Boys is harder. Flying bombers had not the same dash: Guy Gibson likened it to driving a bus. And they were many, not a Few: 125,000 passed through Bomber Command. Hardest is the highly contested reputation of the bombing offensive. Once the scale of its devastation and carnage passed the point of comparability with that suffered in England, and then rose to apocalyptic levels, there was no moral high ground left. No knightly jousting in the clouds, just total war, fought in freezing darkness, with hideous death above and below. ‘Bomber’ Harris saw the root of the problem: ‘People didn’t like being bombed and therefore they didn’t like bombers on principle.’

Bishop faces this awkward aspect head on; his subtitle, ‘Fighting Back’, sets the tone. He details the history of the bombing offensive from its very shaky start to its end as an all-obliterating juggernaut, arguing the case for and against, and from both sides. This honesty makes his main theme, the personal stories of the many Boys (and some attached Girls) all the more vivid: they stand out clearer against a murky moral background. Their courage, resolution, skill and loyalty, in the face of undisguised terror, shine out of Bishop’s meticulous, cool narrative.

Fifty-five thousand, five hundred and seventy-three died, of many countries, and received little gratitude from a nation a bit ashamed, in the deflation of peace, of what it had done in the heat of war. With no campaign medal and little honour for their leader, shorn of hero status, finally insulted by accusations of war crime, they were shuffled out of the spotlight like an embarrassment.