Customer Reviews

Bomber: Events Relating to the Last Flight of an R.A.F. over Germany on the Night of June 31, 1943

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Though the title implies that this is the story of a single bomber, "Bomber" goes farther - much farther, only starting with the crew of the heavy bomber "Joe for King". Deighton then covers other aircrews and their families and superiors before cutting across the channel to the enemy - night-fighter pilots, their controllers in German air defense, various suspicious characters from across the spectrum of Germany's military - from "respectable" Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht personnel to shadowy types from the "Abwehr" and the SS. We also meet the civilian residents of Altgarten, a Ruhr-area town nobody would think of bombing, but which manages to get plastered all the same. It's mid-summer 1943, when "Joe for King" is sent into the Ruhr as part of a massive night-time raid against the industrial centers of Krefeld. Lacking night-vision goggles, RAF pilots of 1943 drop their bombs on targets marked by flares left by directing aircraft - in this case, specially equipped Mosquitoe night-fighters. When the marker plane for the Krefeld raid is shot down prematurely, its flares are released over Altgarten. This error is compounded by inherent flaws in RAF tactics (like targeting bombs in the center of cities, where bombs are more likely to hit civilian homes than factories and military installations), and the town becomes the unintended target for the massive strike. "Bomber" is to RAF's wartime bomber command what "Traffic" is to the DEA - a story of massive scale borne by wide cast if characters that never stops growing. Deighton plays no favorites, certainly not with nationality. The Germans are on the receiving end of the bombs here, but there are plenty of overt references to the Nazis' crimes. On the British side, we see officers acting less like gentlemen than soldiers. Political correctness is the rule (this is the country that gave us "1984"; "Joe for King"'s commander is suspected of incipient Bolshevism - it's very name hints at Stalin). Those who won't fall in line risk being labeled as LMF - Lacking Moral Fiber - officially branded as cowards. Though books with such a command of detail tend towards charitability (if not nostalgically) to those they depict, Deighton is uniformly negative on the subject, a tone reinforced by his many subplots. Lambert, "Joe for King's" rebel pilot, plays the best cricket in Bomber Command - leading his odious superior to compel his participation in an upcoming tournament on pain of getting LMF'd. (Worse - the commander pressures Mrs. Lambert after her husband has departed for the big raid). Previous owners of the land that became the RAF base at Warley Fen, a once verdant field, now stare at the airfield, mourning for what they know they will never have again. In Germany, ADF is managed by August Bach, an aged warrior preparing to marry his young son's nanny, not knowing how her youthful looks have made her the target of vicious rumors through Altgarten. The pilots of a night-fighter squadron (nichtjagdeschwader), preparing for a feared RAF attack on the Ruhr, are thrown into turmoil when Abwehr and Gestapo appear in search of a stolen classifed memo. The memo, it turns out, details hypothermia experiments on concentration camp prisoners (this may be same memo mentioned early in Robert Harriss' superb "Fatherland"). The corrupt assistant to Altgarten's Burgomeister arranges for the downgrading of the town's remaining Jews (from 1/3rd to 2/3rd "Jewishness" - though these jews are even more likely to face deportation and certain death, they will have greater freedom to marry other jews). Altgarten itself is flooded with profiteers funneling goods looted from conquered parts of Russia and the Netherlands. Deighton hints at the underlying corruption of humanity actually tamed by war - it seems that war is the only thing keeping the world safe because it occupies all the amoral types who have to fight it. The only morally just adults are the TENO - the civil safety personnel who dig people out of bombed buildings. Because they are stationed in Altgarten, they get the biggest break: when the raid comes, they have the shortest commute. With so much going on, you just know you're bound to miss something. This is the sort of book that speed-readers hate. You'll probably lose count of all the characters that Deighton throws at you, though this doesn't hurt the plot as much as make the book one you'll want to re-read. Be warned - once you pick up bomber, you'll probably be spoiled for any other novel on the war in the skies over Europe.

Len Deighton has written a fascinating novel of a tragically bungled (fictional) night bombing raid by the RAF in 1943. The book is full of information about the men and machines which took part on both sides. Readers knowledgeable about the air war will appreciate the technical details which Deighton lavishly provides but the casual reader will also be caught up by his talented storytelling. Folly piles upon folly in revealing the tragic and often unintended ramifications of making war.

The ironic tone which suffuses the novel is reflected in the subtitle. As the author points out in the disclaimer, there was no June 31st in 1943 or any other year. A book to read and reread.

Fictional account of fictional mass bombing attack on a small city in the industrial Ruhr Valley of Germany on the night of June 31, 1943. If you think that death in the air is nice and clean, then you must read this book. Plenty of technical detail about the British Lancaster heavy bombers as well as the Luftwaffe night fighters, flak ships, air controllers and flak batteries that oppose them. Characters on both sides are developed in the book before the big raid which sends a stream of over 700 RAF bombers to carpet bomb the wrong target. You will get a good look at what it is like to make a raid in the big bombers as well as what it is like to be a German civilian on the receiving end of tons and tons of bombs. Could possibly be considered by some to be an anti-war book since it shows the folly of the fictitious raid and the horrible cost in human sacrifice - to what end? Definitely a testament to the bravery of the RAF bomber crews who relentlessly push on night after night against all odds as well as the German night fighter interceptors who try to destroy them. A good read and a great book.