Halifax Squadron by Bill Norman

RETURNING from a raid on Dusseldorf in February 1945, the crew of a Halifax bomber based at RAF Leconfield, East Yorkshire, experienced a new meaning of the term "bomber's moon".

Hit by shells, their plane became what air bomber Dick Peacock likened to "a colander". The moonlight filtered through the holes in the fuselage - but that was the least of the crew's worries.

A petrol tank exploded, causing a fire and loss of fuel. Vital wiring was also severed. Two crewmen, one with burnt hands and a scorched face, wrestled desperately to switch the fuel supply from one tank to another.

When the plane landed - by necessity in Suffolk, well short of its destination - there was no fuel left. The Halifax was a writeoff, and inspection revealed that enemy shells had even passed through unreleased bombs.

What good fortune for Dick Peacock - in postwar years destined to become the last clerk of Stokesley Rural District Council - and his six fellow crewmen.

Their escape contrasted with the ill luck of another Leconfield crew whose plane also ran short of fuel.

Attempting a difficult emergency landing at Ravenscar, the pilot approached from the west to maximise the limited space. But the plane ran over the cliff edge, killing all the crew. From the tyre marks people estimated that just another ten or 20 yards would have saved them.

Bill Norman describes these events in a detailed operational history of Leconfield's 640 Squadron. Self-published by Bill to an exceptionally high standard, it could serve as a salute to any, or all, of the scores of World War II Bomber Command squadrons, which formed, as Bill says, "the most dangerous arm of the British Armed Forces".

Almost 60 per cent of bomber crew, all of whom were volunteers, became casualties, and of these almost 45 per cent perished.

The highest loss rate in the armed services, this sacrifice is strikingly illustrated by 640 Squadron. Not formed until January 1944, at the height of the Battle for Berlin, it nevertheless lost 262 men in its short existence spanning the final 16 months of the war.

Yet it seems the selfless airmen were not especially seen as heroes at the time.

A 640 navigator recalls a train guard insisting that he and his colleagues, dusty and fatigued on a journey back to Leconfield after being forced to land in Kent, place their gear, some of it classified, in the guard's van. Only the threat of being thrown off the train made the official relent.

Another crew, making a similar journey after a different raid, found that, in the words of one of them, "nobody took the slightest notice of us, despite our impedimenta and generally scruffy appearance". With no money between them, they were at one point refused use of a phone.

Besides the late Dick Peacock, several other former North-East airmen figure in the 640 story. Jock Patterson, from Hartlepool, was the air bomber on a Halifax whose wireless operator, Freddie Nuttall, took the controls of the burning plane when the pilot was killed. He couldn't stop the plane going down, but by pulling it out of its spin he saved the lives of four colleagues, who were able to bale out. His last known act, as his flying suit was in flames, was to signal to his navigator to go.

Bill Norman notes that this outstanding act of courage was "never officially acknowledged'' - i. e. not recognised with a posthumous award. It is surely never too late to rectify such an oversight. A picture of Nuttall in his RAF uniform, smiling and looking incredibly boyish, and Bill's own photograph of his grave in Germany, add poignancy to the tragedy.

Appropriately, Bill puts 640's Roll of Honour, which includes its Commanding Officer, MT Maw, killed when piloting a plane over France, at the head of the main body of his book. Rounding this off are appendices which list not only every aircrew squadron member but every sortie and (separately) every loss. Memories of veterans cover the whole gamut, from the missions themselves to entertainment.

While Dick Peacock made the point that "there was surprisingly little talk of the purpose of our life at that time", the late Bill Goodrum, of Middlesbrough, who won the DFC for maintaining his bomb run at low level in the face of intense fire, stressed the kinship.

"Living together, flying together, crews became very close. Once we got in the aircraft and slammed the door we were on our own. No one could help us. We had to sort it out ourselves. We had to rely upon each other."

Complete with a wealth of pictures, excellently-reproduced and displayed, this is a magnificent record, easily worth the hefty price. Bill expresses the modest hope that it will "give the general reader at least the flavour of bomber operations during the last years of the war while at the same time providing an insight into the dangers that brave men regularly faced on our behalf".

It does so gloriously. Any surviving veteran is sure to say: "Yes, this is what it was like." Readers of a later generation will be moved - and humbled - by the unhesitating heroism.

Published by the author, 23a Thames Avenue, Guisborough, TS14 8AE, Tel: (01287) 280429; £27.50