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Lancaster Target Jack Currie Books

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Lancaster Target Jack Currie Books

This is the second volume of the author's memoir of his RAF service in World War II. It tells how he flew thirty missions against the enemy in a Lancaster bomber. Just as in the first volume Wings over Georgia, Currie brings superior writing ability, warm recall of his fellows and a sense of humor to the reader. Obviously he survives the tour of duty to write this book so many years later. It is through his recording of the RAF night campaign in the air over Europe that the lives of so many of his comrades in arms are preserved in ink if not otherwise. I look forward to reading the third of his books Mosquito Victory when it arrives.


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Lancaster Target Jack Currie Books Reviews

Starting with a humorous look at the random process of choosing his fellow crew members, Currie introduces us to the naive generation that answered a call to arms following outbreak of WW II. As long as the volunteer is concerned with learning to fly, it is an adventure.
After the Battle of Britain, the Germans turned eastward, by attacking the Soviet Union. Victory was a possibility. Reports from conquered countries claimed the Germans seized foodstuffs and property. Until the British Army could rebuild, they had no way to free those countries. Frederick Lindemann, adviser to the British, wrote suggesting using Bomber Command to attack the cities where workers lived, creating refugees, incidentally hitting the defense factories. He called it 'de-housing'. This was a further drain on Hitler's power.
Other books have already covered a crew's first flights in a bomber, then move into an Operational Training Unit, assignment to squadron and the pilot's baptism of fire with an established crew. He returns and takes his own crew and plane. Between flights, Currie visits villages of his youth, drinks a few pints, and watches his mates' antics.
Their first operation was Cologne in mid-1943. On a raid to Hamburg, their plane is caught in storms and ice, then loses control (see Operation Gomorrah The Hamburg Firestorm Raids). On recovery, the wings are damaged and a crewman injured. Currie steers back to base with rudders and engines, landing without flaps. The squadron was quietly impressed.
Peenemunde, a later target, is described at briefing as a research base for a new generation of radar-equipped nightfighters-- incorrectly. It was a V2 test site. (See The Peenemunde Raid The Night of 17-18 August 1943 (Penguin History)). They dodge fighters on return.
They reach the end of tour, are assigned to training duties, per SOP. Currie returns for a second combat tour in Mosquitos and against odds, survives.
Americans who read of the air war against Hitler's Germany naturally begin with our own formations of B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators bombing in daylight. This fine book opens a window on the parallel effort of the Royal Air Force, their bombers streaming over German cities at night.

In 1977, former pilot Jack Currie (1921-1996) wrote down the story of his combat tour flying the Lancaster in the RAF Bomber Command -- thirty night "ops" (missions) in 1943 and 1944. Among the ops, nine were to Berlin. It's a remarkable book of life in 12 Squadron at Wickenby, on and off duty, up close and personal. There are many revealing details of flying, navigation, crew roles, gunnery, bomb-aiming, flak, night fighters, the bomber stream, the H2X and Gee systems, Pathfinders, messes, pubs, and "grog," all rendered in non-technical language. Currie's narrative of comradeship among the seven crewmen -- British and Australian -- is winning. You'll sing "Old King Cole was a merry old soul" with new spirit after reading a wonderful chapter set in a pub. "There's none so rare that can compare with the boys of Wickenby."

This is largely a matter-of-fact story of "doing a job" -- mastery of air and machine to drop bombs on enemy cities. Even so, Currie's prose takes wing in near-lyrical passages on flying. His introspection on losses among the aircrews and the horrible destruction in German cities below is compact but telling. Historians will also admire his modest preface, which says so much in only three paragraphs, including this "All warfare is a bitter waste, of men, materials, and effort, but I do not like to think that some 50,000 young men of Bomber Command lost their lives for nothing."

-30-
It was just more of the same, chapter after chapter.
Climb on board with Jack and his crew...I did in this book.
GREAT read. If you ever wanted to know what it was like in a bomber, read this book.
A simple and matter of fact telling of a crew's perspective of the night bomber offensive against Germany. This book avoids the usual temptation to pad out the narrative with background information that wasn't available at the time.

If you are looking for a history of the air war then this isn't it. If you want to know what it was really like to fly a Lancaster into Germany on operations and to live as bomber crew in England then you should read this book.
Good, but writing style is dry. The book seems to occasionally lose focus and wanders at times. Also lots of unnecessary filler. But probably the biggest drawback is the fact that only about 30% of the book covers the actual flown missions, while the other 70% talks about base life and pub antics.

But since there are so few RAF Bomber Command books available, it might still be enjoyable and worth the read for those interested in the subject.
This is the second volume of the author's memoir of his RAF service in World War II. It tells how he flew thirty missions against the enemy in a Lancaster bomber. Just as in the first volume Wings over Georgia, Currie brings superior writing ability, warm recall of his fellows and a sense of humor to the reader. Obviously he survives the tour of duty to write this book so many years later. It is through his recording of the RAF night campaign in the air over Europe that the lives of so many of his comrades in arms are preserved in ink if not otherwise. I look forward to reading the third of his books Mosquito Victory when it arrives.