Derring-do: Heroic Endeavour, a classic WWII tale of bravery.

Heroic Endeavour

Sean Feast
Grub Street
190 pages, $16.95

ON DECEMBER 23, 1944, with the air war over Germany entering its final phase, “Bomber” Harris launched 27 Lancasters and three Mosquitoes of the Path Finder Force escorted by RAF Mustangs on a small night raid to Cologne.

The target, the Gremberg railway yards, needed to be destroyed so precision bombing was called for.

This, the story of that one raid, is a very human story and we start by meeting the crews and key characters in the tale, including “Bluey” Osmond, the sole Australian mentioned in the text and also the tragic hero – Sqn-Ldr Robert Palmer, VC, DFC and bar – killed on this, his 110th operation.

There is some scripting of what might have been said to fill in the story, and, the author, a journalist, has made it very believable.

He has captured the tension, fear and sense of loss no doubt present on all those dreadful operations that Bomber Command conducted night after night.

So too the German side of the story is recreated, especially that of the protagonists – the German night fighters.

Of the 206 Bomber Command men sent out, 51 failed to return – a full quarter of the force – well illustrating the fragility of life as a bomber crewman.

Written in two parts, in the first of which we read of the raid itself, the briefing, the flight over, the attack and the return.

The second part is reflective and is more of a post-mortem of the raid’s failure as much of its success.

This section is written very much from the survivor’s viewpoint, now old men whose memory is still vivid and not misted by time.

– AIRCDRE Mark Lax