CFS3
As it's certainly something that might be attractive to many on this forum, I feel compelled to issue a warning about the book 'The Other Battle of Britain' by Paul Tweddle.
As a 'bomber guy', I leapt at this, but I've been very disappointed. If you like page after page, chapter after chapter recountings of mission by mission specifics, this is the book for you! As a resource for mission builders for a sim like ours, it's probably a dynamite reference.
However, if you're looking for a good, informative, insightful read, the work is sorely lacking. It's devoid of a clear central narrative other than 'The RAF sent out the bombers too during the Battle of Britain'. It fails to link it to the bigger picture and explore the rationale and decisions that drove Bomber Command's actions in the summer of 1940. Even the planned operation to use Bomber Command against an invasion attempt only gets a passing mention. I learned more about it, and that it planned to use poison gas, from a podcast! It, and how it may or may not have contributed to halting an invasion, should have been an entire chapter.
Additionally, in describing the missions, the book almost always relates what the crew reported in terms of the damage being done. There is rarely any indication that these reports of success were backed up by reports from the receiving end, more often just the occasional reference to inaccuracy and the difficulty of navigation. Given the later Butt Report's savaging of Bomber Command's claims to be hitting their targets, this is a gross omission.
I feel bad as each individual mission story is certainly worthy of remembrance and respect, but as essentially a chronicle of one after the other, they become tedious and all start to blend together. 75% could easily be deleted and replaced with the broader view I've described above, with the remaining 25% serving to punctuate the narrative in much the way that Will Iredale does in 'The Path Finders', to excellent effect.
It's a shame as the relatively brief first and last chapters read well and the author seems to know what he's talking about, but the intervening four lengthy chapters are quite taxing. The book's subtitle, 'Bomber Command's Forgotten Summer', is extremely evocative, but as I hope I've made clear, the work does not fulfill on it. A more clinical 'Bomber Command, July to October 1940 - Day-by-Day' would have been a better description and would have more clearly indicated the book's nature.
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Originally Posted by NachtPiloten
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