Just So Stories

Allen & Unwin

July 2024

ISBN:9781761471186

RRP: $34.99

First of all, I want to especially thank Allen & Unwin for giving me the opportunity to review this. Although my Father Bear’s squadron was the 514, it was still a Lancaster outfit with an almost entirely Australian crew – one of many who were the workhorses of Bomber Command, and the most vulnerable. The life expectancy of a new recruit on active duty was just two weeks. How blessed was I to have my dad when you consider those statistics?

many know of the outstanding exploits of the Dambusters, the story of Bruce Buckham, his crew and the 463 Squadron has largely gone unnoticed. But what a heroic and inspirational story it is.

Like so many of their peers, there was always the risk of death and disaster every time they went up. There were plenty of near-misses, limping back after raids with smashed fuselages, broken wings, punctured fuel tanks and injuries.But there were also many, many success stories.

When Bomber Command really got its act together and realised that to beat Germany, the Allies had to take the offensive and that meant in the skies, it was the beginning of the end for the Nazis. And though the losses were high, including those due to ‘friendly fire’, without these amazing heroes, we would likely have gone under.

Bruce Buckham was recognised as exactly the pilot needed by Bomber Command. He had a natural intuition when it came to flying, with the streak of mischief that meant taking a calculated risk, which helped him and his crew to be largely responsible for the ultimate destruction of the Tirpitz. The sinking of this leviathan battleship not only enabled the Allied naval forces to focus their attentions on the offensive rather than defensive but was a huge blow to German morale and to Hitler himself, with his own overweening belief in his (and his forces’) invincibility.

Mark Baker follows Buckham’s journey from recruit to war hero and along the way breathes life into a history of which I only knew parts. My dad did not talk much about his war experiences (like many of his peers) although was always keen to talk of others and watch the subsequent movies (Dambusters being a favourite) and I grew up knowing names like Guy Gibson, Barnes-Wallis, Douglas Bader and so on. And I did know just a smidgin of the hijinks the off-duty boys in blue got up to. But this excellent book completely brings all this and more to life for us almost 80 years on.

More importantly, it brings the names of these heroic men back to the forefront. I have hung onto every word of this, and not only did I begin to get a much better sense of my own father’s war but learned other fascinating facts. For example. Neville Shute has long been one of my favourite authors, and IMO one of our most outstanding Australian writers, and certainly one of the first to achieve a global recognition. Until I read this, I had no idea his actual name was Neville Shute Norway, that he was an aeronatical engineer, and that he invented the hydraulic landing gear for planes, which completely revolutionised safety for these monster planes of the period.

This is no dry history book. It is full of character as well as drama, and often humour. I have many fond memories of Xmas parties with combined squaddies, growing up in Sydney, and now I wonder how many of those named in this book might have been present at those.

I was always proud of my Father Bear and his part in the war, going off as an 18 year old and returning at the end of his tour, safe and whole – an adult, with hidden scars (he had nightmares for years afterwards and refused to get back into a plane until he was in his late 50s – and then with great trepidation. Easy to happen when your plane’s been shot up and there’s a dirty big hole in the bottom of it and chaos all around you). Now I realise I was likely in the company of so many other heroes and didn’t know it.

If you are interested in the period or if you have older students who are reading around their topic, or indeed those older kids keen on military equipment and vehicles, this is a book for you. If you are interested in true Australian heroes, then this one is a must-have. Thanks again to A&U, and to all those flyboys particularly the Lancaster mob. It’s a 5 ✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️ rating without a doubt.

WW2: Could you be part of a Lancaster Bomber crew?

Lancaster Positions

Virtual AWM 463 Squadron

Virtual AWM 514 Squadron