LA VIGIE - War Memoirs of a Rear Gunner in the Pathfinders

The story of the air war over Germany as seen from the small plexiglass bubble of the rear turret of a Lancaster.

Originally a member of 626 Squadron, then of 156 Pathfinder Squadron, Ron Smith flew 65 operations, which he recorded with the intensity born of his isolation at the rear of that metal giant. The book describes in fascinating detail the nocturnal experience of being sealed inside a plexiglass capsule above the void, most often in appalling weather, attacking some of the most heavily defended targets in Nazi Germany.

« … Suddenly, we were above the city… After the long hours spent scanning the night sky from the coast, being suddenly hurled into the blazing inferno above Berlin was enough to chill the blood. The flak sliced through the illuminated clouds, rising gracefully to pass before the turret with a hellish shriek.

A Lancaster slid at right angles with a fighter close behind it, as if connected by an invisible thread. The city below was seething, splashes of fire erupting as the bombs stirred the terrible magma… Higher up, two fighters banked their wings to attack a Lancaster behind us, breaking away at the moment the bomber burst into flames. The bomber held a level course, continuing to fly, as if indifferent to its mortal wounds.

Tiny silhouettes detached from it, one after another, falling through the white vault of cloud into the inferno far below, the Lancaster drifting downward, suddenly gathering speed and disappearing forever… »