Tail Gunner Squadron Leader

Originally published in 1943, this is one man's first-hand account of the part he played in RAF Bomber Command's fledgling bomber offensive between August 1940 and December 1941. Richard Rivaz flew as tail gunner to Leonard Cheshire, one of the most famous RAF pilots of World War II. His modest but vivid narrative reveals what it was like to be part of a heavy bomber crew flying first Whitleys and then Halifaxes with No.s 102 and 35 squadrons. He includes vivid descriptions of his personal experiences on daylight and night bombing attacks against targets as diverse as the battleship "Scharnhorst", and the cities of Cologne and Berlin; shoot-outs with German fighters; and two ditchings in the North Sea, one at night - which he survived to write this book. Unlike most wartime memoirs, this was written within months of the events Rivaz describes and with all the immediacy of a man who was in the thick of the action. Sadly, he was killed in October 1945, five months after the end of the War in Europe, when a Liberator of RAF Transport Command in which he was a passenger exploded on take-off from Brussels airport.