Customer Reviews

War in a Stringbag (Wings of War Series)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I thoroughly recommend this and The Railway Man by Eric Lomax as my favourite WWII accounts.If you are looking for a real WWII epic story of incredible sacrifice told with extreme humility in a matter-of-fact way, then this is the book for you. I actually met Charles Lamb whilst I was a Royal Navy Officer, a fact that I only realised toward the end of the book!
As a young man, Charles Lamb was a Swordfish torpedo bomber pilot. The tough old biplane was capable of carrying so many types of weapons that the naval airmen called it a "Stringbag". Most of the tale takes place before the USA's entry into the war, but this should not put American readers off, quite the contrary since Lamb's revelations of how the Americans helped Britain in its hour of need would bring a lump to your throat. I have read books about Far East prisoners of war but I had not realised the barbaric conditions suffered by British and Commonwealth airmen in North Africa at the hands of the Vichy French. The way that this was swept under the carpet as the Allies advanced towards Germany so as to keep the French on side, was a revelation to me. This book has so many gems of untold glory that military history buffs should find interesting. Lamb gets sunk, crashed, into espionage, talked to by the King, instruction from Churchill,locked up, you name it! And it's a true story! The flying too will send your hair on end. A remarkable man, from a remarkable generation telling an extraordinary tale.

Pretty big call with the title but wow! Charles Lamb can write and write well. The reader follows his pre-war and wartime experiences of his Swordfish flying, flying that is always fraught with danger given the relatively rudimentary nature of the aircraft and the procedures for flying long distance over the ocean. These men went to war in an aircraft that looked outdated and flew incredibly slowly. Brave indeed. However, in the Swordfish, they had a pure, strong work horse that served throughout the war and became a legend. This is the best book on Swordfish flying, or maybe any flying, you will find anywhere. Mr Lamb's writing about the sinking of HMS Courageous early in the war (he was the last to land on her), getting married, mining heavily defended German shipping lanes, involvement in the famous raid on the Italian fleet at Taranto, combat sorties in the Med and from a secret base behind enemy lines in Greece, ditching next to an RN destroyer after Illustrious is pounded by Stukas, ops from Malta, raids over North Africa and time in a Vichy French hell hole of a POW camp (phew and it doesn't end there!) will have you turning the pages and shaking your head in amazement and respecting these men even more.

Told with humility, humour and self-deprecation, War in A Stringbag is a joy and an honour to read.

A wonderful book. My brother was a telegraphist air gunner (TAG) and sadly was killed in 1940 in an aircraft accident at Naval Air Base Machrihanish, Scotland. It would have been nice to see a cover depicting both crewmen. Commander Philip Arthur Balink-White, MBE, Royal Navy