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Review of Diary of a Night Bomber Pilot
Diary of a Night Bomber Pilot in World War I by Clive Semple, edited by Wing Commander Alan Mawby, Spellmount Ltd., Gloucestershire, 2008, 320 pp., 7” x 10”, hardcover, well illustrated with B&W and color photos and original documents, appendices, bibliography, index, ISBN 978-1-86227-452-5, £25 (UK), www.spellmount.com .
Clive Semple’s Diary of a Night Bomber Pilot in WWI is the story of his father’s adventures as an RAF Handley Page pilot with 207 Squadron. The outline and inspiration for this history is Lt. Leslie Semple’s scrapbook and bare-bones diary. As with Charles Woolley’s Echos of Eagles (2003), Semple is trying to reconstruct his father’s wartime experiences without having learned about them while he was alive. Like Woolley, his efforts are successful and have resulted in a readable and fascinating story.
Lt. Semple did not leave his son much to work with – a very eventful day might have resulted in a dozen short sentences, at least one of which alluded to his adventures in patrolling for a date. Author Semple, however, spent years researching his father’s experiences and fleshes out cogent explanations from even the briefest of references. For example, Leslie writes one sentence about working at the “control stand” and Clive spends five pages explaining these early air traffic control stations using photos, official instructions, and contemporary newspaper accounts. Repeatedly, he includes details, photos, and explanations about Handley Page operations that this reviewer had never seen before. In this he was well served by Wing Commander Alan Mawby, who thoroughly scrubbed the manuscript to make it historically accurate. Compared to the more famous Independent Force, little has been written about the operations of Britain’s tactical bombers on the Western Front. This fascinating story helps fill that gap and is highly recommended.
[This is a review I submitted to Over the Front which will be published next year.] --Steve Suddaby
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| jlhowell | Just read "Diary of a Night Bomber Pilot in WW1" | 0 | Nov 12 2009, 4:40 PM EST by jlhowell | ||
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Thread started: Nov 12 2009, 4:40 PM EST
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I bought this book based on Suddaby's recommendation. The book was good because it set the whole story in context. The author's relative and editor apparently visited all the locales mentioned in the pilot's diary. I'm still amazed at all the men who were willing to fly what in essence was a giant powered glider over usually unfamiliar territory, in freezing weather, at night, and knowing that a blown engine meant ditching into cold water or arguing with trees. I understand that the usual emergency communications device after letting down at sea was a homing pigeon!
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