Norwegian Patrol

In 1939 the task of No.233 Squadron RAF was maritime reconnaissance. Operating from Leuchars, on Scotland's east coast, the Hudsons of No. 233 and their sister squadron No. 224 reported on shipping movements in the North Sea between Scotland and Norway, attacked German ships and U-boats, and escorted Allied ships in the area.
It was an unglamorous job, but vitally necessary. It was also exhausting, morale-sapping and dangerous — particularly so after the failure of the ill-fated 1940 Norwegian campaign, when the previously neutral Norwegian airfields became the bases for the Me 109s and 110s, which were more than a match for the
lumbering Hudsons.
In this remarkably frank yet gently humorous book 'Dopey' Edwards tells the story of that first year of World War Two. There are no supermen and few heroics in its pages. Rather it describes how the author, a regular Royal Air Force pilot, found his morale and determination slipping away as the campaign progressed and the casualties mounted. Many readers who flew in that war will immediately identify with the author's feelings. Those who did not will be brought, almost painfully, to recognise that wartime flying was not as glamorous as many accounts have had us believe. This is a story of courage, physical and mental, recounted with humour and insight. It tells honestly and vividly of the men who flew day after day over the cold, grey waters of the North Sea; of the stomach-churning moments when they were jumped by enemy fighters; of the frustration of seeing a U-boat crash-dive to evade the all-too-small bombs carried by the Hudsons; of the search for the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau; of a frightening low-level bombing raid on Hamburg, of the strain of flying an aircraft whose wing was, literally, a fuel tank.



by Gron Edwards
Published by Airlife 1985 1st edition. 176pp illustrated, appendix. 16x22 mint, including d/j.



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"Long" descriptions, where shown, may have been taken from the book's dust jacket notes, and as such are relevant to the date of publication (e.g. any references to "new edition" "previously unpublished photographs" etc.) and not the present.

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