The Ship-Busters: The Story of the R-A-F Torpedo-Bombers

Quality Book Club Edition - in good condition - has markings from use - due to differing weights in books, postage maybe adjusted at checkout.

The low-level strike against enemy shipping by torpedo-carrying aircraft was perhaps the most dangerous and exhilarating form of air attack developed during the last war, and few isolated actions could have had such a direct impact on naval and military operations. This book sets out to tell the story of the R.A.F. torpedo-bombers and of the men who flew them, from the early 'rover' attacks by single Beauforts off the Dutch and Norwegian coasts to the massed assaults of later years by the rocket and torpedo-carrying aircraft of the famous 'strike-wings.'

The full stories of many historic actions are included: the lone moonlight attack by a 22-year-old flight sergeant on the pocket-battleship Lützow; the torpedoing of the Gneisenau in harbour at Brest, which put the battle-cruiser out of action for eight months at a critical stage of the war and for which Flying Officer Kenneth Campbell was posthumously awarded the V.C; the escape of the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Prinz Eugen through the Channel, with the first detailed and personal account of the epic Swordfish attacks; and the series of strikes from Malta in the summer of 1942 against the Italian Fleet and against the supply shipping of the Afrika Korps, when every ship sunk had its repercussions on the land battle in Egypt, culminating in the sinking, on the eve of El Alamein and within sight of Tobruk harbour, of Rommel's 'last' tanker.

The result is an utterly fascination book, vivid in its unvarnished picture of aircrew life, stirring in its descriptions of heroic actions, intensely moving in its record of human endeavour. A new and hitherto unsaluted band of heroes emerges as Flight Lieutenant Barker unfolds his epic story.