Mike Garbett

Lancaster at War is a love letter to the most famous of the British heavy bombers. A heavy coffee table book with a lot of photos, this book is best when it lets the men around the Lancaster speak about what it was like to fly in and work on this magnificent machines.

Missions were terrifying and lonely, mostly night raids over Germany where the seven man crew could be very alone in a crowded sky. Unlike the Americans, who flew in immense formations, the British used dark and dispersal to show more shield their bombers. German night fighters stalked the bomber streams and searchlights and flak cut the sky. Death could come suddenly, or slowly by fire and blood loss. However you slice it, this was a mission of primal terror and great bravery.

The Lancaster was a gloriously built machine, designed to be both tough and simple, with well-harmonized controls and good aerodynamics. The immense uninterrupted bomb bay could carry unparalleled loads, from the "Usual" of a 4000 lbs high explosive blockbusters and hundreds of incendiaries, to the special weapons of Tallboy and Grand Slam earthquake bombs and the bouncing bombs of the Dambusters raid.

This book assumes a familiarity with the course of the war and aviation. These men are writing for each other, for their own use, and they don't both to explain the acronyms, or assume you already know about Squadron 617. But their sheer appreciation for the plane that saw them through the war, and the comrades they lost, elevate what could have been a rather dry or pointless photographic history. show less

hardback

$20