Much has been written about the Royal Air Force during the Second World War – memoirs, biographies, histories of Fighter and Bomber commands, technical studies of the aircraft, accounts of individual operations and exploits – but few books have attempted to take the reader on a journey through basic training and active service as air or ground crew and eventual demobilization at the end of the war. That is the aim of James Goulty’s
Eyewitness RAF
. Using a vivid selection of testimony from men and women, he offers a direct insight into every aspect of wartime life in the service.
Throughout the book the emphasis is on the individual’s experience of the RAF – the preparations for flying, flying itself, the daily routines of an air base, time on leave, and the issues of discipline, morale and motivation. A particularly graphic section describes, in the words of the men themselves, what it felt like to go on operations and the impact of casualties – airmen who were killed, injured or taken prisoner.
A fascinating varied inside view of the RAF emerges which is perhaps less heroic and glamorous than the image created by some postwar accounts, but it gives readers today a much more realistic appreciation of the whole gamut of life in the RAF seventy years ago.