Stirling at War

Ref: 4896

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{detailed description}Following the successful formula established by more than 50 titles in the popular 'at War' series, Stirling at War portrays in words and pictures just what it was like to have been on Stirlings' during World War 2.
Weaving his narrative around the detailed eyewitness accounts of aircrews, groundcrews and those who built the Stirling, author Jonathan Falconer reveals the troubled life story of Shorts' big bomber.
Through the eyes of a factory worker at Queen's Island, Belfast, we witness the birth of one of the RAF's first four-engined 'heavies'.
We climb the crew ladder, follow the skipper up the long dark fuselage to the cockpit and fly with him and his crew on one of the first Stirling raids over Germany.
Lie on your belly in the bomb aimer's position as the skipper dodges flak and fighters at low level: 'We crossed the enemy coast at Wilhelmshaven and were soon flying at low level between two of the Friesian Islands .. the guns on each island appeared to be firing horizontally or down at us.'
Sit in on a top secret briefing for an SD Stirling crew at Tempsford, and fly with them to a DZ 'somewhere in Occupied Europe' to deliver their 'Joe'. Freeze in the biting East Anglian wind with the groundcrews on dispersal as they try to change an exhaust manifold: 'The Bristol Hercules engines were superb .. . there was virtually nothing to leak from them. But it was a long way down to the ground if you slipped on the wings ...'
Fly in the greatest aerial armadas ever seen as you carry crack paratroops to Normandy on the eve of D-Day, or tow a lumbering Horsa glider through flak-peppered skies to Arnhem: 'As we approached the DZ, someone let off a flare, lighting up the whole sky. It was simply full of aircraft . . . above us, below us and on either side ...'
Many Stirlings and their crews failed to return, victims of the enemy defences or bad weather: 'It seemed no more than seconds after I had throttled right back that C-Charlie hit the water with an immense thud ... a flood of cold sea water crashed through the hatch above me ...'
With the help of over 220 black and white photographs - many of which represent rare and previously unpublished glimpses of the Stirling - Stirling at War offers the first truly comprehensive coverage of the type's wartime career with the RAF, revealed through the words and photographs of those who knew it best: the factory workers, groundcrews and the men who flew it into battle over four long years of total war.
{Author / Publisher / Date}by Jonathan Falconer
published by Ian Allan
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