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Target By Moonlight - The Author
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Dennis Field at the controls of an Avro 685 York C1 Long Range Freighter (G-ANTK) that was fully restored (2006) by the Aviation Society at Duxford where it is now on permanent exhibition. Shortly after the war, Dennis flew Avro York aircraft on routes to the Far East and, thanks to John Roberts and Chris Giles of the Aviation Society, was reunited with MW232 (Royal Air Force Registration) after surprisingly finding the registration in his logbook. When asked by one of the restoration team what he thought of the restoration, a long pause was followed by “It’s not quite as I remember it. It looks as though it has just come out of the factory!” A magical moment, thanks to everyone at Duxford.
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Quotes From The Author “I was shaken when a toll of 94 [aircraft], which excluded crashes in this country, was announced. The loss of aircrew on that one night was greater than that sustained throughout the months of the Battle of Britain .....”“The ongoing casualty rate and missing faces were a constant reminder but it always seemed, except in extra sticky circumstances or after a “shaky do”, that the worst was likely to happen only to the other guys and not to ourselves. Such an outlook depended largely on youthful optimism and confidence, and a “press-on” attitude reflecting an idealism that partly extended from school combined with contemporary ethics of duty and responsibility.” “.... as with us they had the alternatives of evacuating the cities, finding adequate shelter or of surrendering. They had no consideration for their own innocent victims and expressed only euphoria for Hitler’s earlier conquests. On a statistical basis the civilian population suffered much less than one per cent fatalities. Corresponding Bomber Command aircrew losses were near sixty per cent. The total regret one felt was that the Germans had made it all necessary.” |
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